Ripple’s stablecoin, RLUSD, just hit a market capitalization of $1.56 billion, up from just $132 million at this time last year. By any measure, the stablecoin has been a smashing success since its launch in December 2024.
That’s great news for Ripple, the company behind XRP, but it’s a problem for the cryptocurrency’s investors.
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I see why XRP holders might be excited by RLUSD’s adoption. Ripple’s growth is Ripple’s growth, right? More products should mean a bigger ecosystem, and a rising tide lifts all boats.
But I think that misunderstands the situation.
XRP’s core value proposition has always been its role as a “bridge asset,” providing liquidity in Ripple’s payment product — formerly known as On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). Before RLUSD, when a bank sent dollars from the U.S. to euros in France, Ripple converted the dollars to XRP and then back to euros. XRP was the middle step — and it still can be, but so too can RLUSD.
And as a dollar-pegged stablecoin, it’s exactly that — stable — and stability is what banks are after. They tend to avoid dealing with volatile assets as much as possible.
This makes RLUSD a no-brainer for most financial institutions that want to use Ripple’s liquidity product, and the more institutions that opt for RLUSD, the less opt for XRP.
Ripple knows that banks want stability and has pivoted hard into pushing RLUSD as the premier bridge asset. The company spent $200 million to acquire the stablecoin payments firm RAIL, and its website now prominently features “integrate stablecoin payments into your business” — not “use XRP for faster transfers.” Ripple clearly seems to be building its future around stablecoin infrastructure while XRP is sidelined.
I’ve been saying for a while now that the fundamental bull thesis — that the adoption of Ripple’s technology will drive XRP demand — was already flawed. The fact is, most banks have no need for Ripple’s liquidity features and only use its messaging technology, which doesn’t involve XRP at all.
But there was at least some demand pressure from the smaller subset of institutions that did want liquidity. That is now being undercut by Ripple itself. The more RLUSD is adopted, the less XRP is needed.
