Ripple’s RLUSD Stablecoin Launching Tuesday Following Massive XRP Surge

Ripple will launch its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin called Ripple USD (RLUSD) on Tuesday, the company announced Monday.

Backed by U.S. dollars, U.S. government bonds, and cash equivalents, Ripple said that the token will initially trade on platforms including MoonPay, Uphold, Bitso, Archax, and CoinMENA. RLUSD will be available across Ethereum and XRP Ledger, Ripple added.

The anticipated launch follows a recent surge in the value of XRP, the token created by Ripple’s co-founders that is used in the firm’s payments services. XRP jumped to a seven-year high price of $2.82 earlier this month, and remains up by 122% over the last 30 days at a current price of $2.45, per data from CoinGecko.

RLUSD’s debut comes amid growing demand for stablecoins, which have found notable use in areas like remittances and decentralized finance, or DeFi. This year, the total market cap of stablecoins has ballooned to over $200 billion, a steep increase from $130 billion in January, according to DeFiLlama.

Stablecoins are meant to track a fiat currency’s price, such as the U.S. dollar’s, but Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, issued a recent warning. Some pre-market bids for RLUSD valued the stablecoin as high as $1,244, a price that he said should come back down.

The first stablecoin was launched over a decade ago, but companies outside the crypto space may just have started dipping their toes. The payments giant PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin last year, and a group of firms, including Robinhood, announced plans just last month to support a Global Dollar stablecoin (USDG) issued by Paxos.

Ripple said its stablecoin will be regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, which issued the company a limited purpose trust company charter. The charter, first issued to a crypto firm in 2015, effectively makes Ripple’s product subject to New York banking laws.

Ripple said it will publish third-party attestations, providing insight into the stablecoin’s backing, each month via an independent auditing firm, for the sake of transparency.

As of now, stablecoins are subject to a patchwork of regulations in the U.S. that can vary state by state, even though the NYDFS framework has inspired states like California. Lawmakers have, however, discussed the merits of regulating stablecoins federally since legislation was introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) in 2022.

Last year, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee passed the “Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023.” But the bill that would provide a framework for regulating stablecoins still needs to be passed in the House and Senate. That could involve a period of bargaining and more debate, Circle’s Vice President, Yam Ki Chan, previously told Decrypt.

While the 118th Congress will end in less than three weeks, leaving lawmakers with little time to pass legislation, Democrats and Republicans had expressed optimism that a stablecoin framework could be passed in 2024. Congress’ next session will begin January 3.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.

Edited by Andrew Hayward