• RLUSD has reached a $789 million market cap and is driving institutional adoption.
• Ripple’s partnerships with Securitize, BlackRock, and VanEck open the door to trillions in tokenized assets.
• XRPL’s EVM sidechain and RLUSD integration position Ripple as a bridge between traditional finance and DeFi.

RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, is making major waves across the crypto landscape. Launched in late 2016, it has already built a market cap of $789 million, placing it at the #90 spot on CoinMarketCap. Its USD peg remains almost flawless with just a 0.01% variance, a level of stability that has drawn banks and financial firms into Ripple’s ecosystem. 

According to a tweet thread from expert Max Avery, institutions view this consistency as critical for handling high-value settlements, and RLUSD has become their preferred choice for internal Ripple-powered transactions.

RLUSD is changing everything for the XRP Ledger. What started as Ripple’s answer to stablecoin independence has become the rocket fuel for institutional adoption. Here’s what the XRPL + RLUSD is doing to transform global finance.
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— Max Avery (@realMaxAvery) September 27, 2025

The latest listing on Bybit brought an immediate surge of activity, with XRP open interest skyrocketing to $1 billion in a matter of hours. Retail and institutional money is flowing in at speed, giving RLUSD a stronger foothold as the backbone for XRP Ledger adoption.

Ripple Expands RLUSD Beyond Basic Stablecoin

Ripple has broadened RLUSD’s function exponentially beyond a standard stablecoin. A giant step was taken with its collaboration with Securitize, in which RLUSD was chosen as the redemption layer for BlackRock’s BUIDL and VanEck’s VBILL tokenized funds. This represents a potential trillions of assets being funneled through Ripple’s stablecoin rails.

In the meantime, Ripple’s software today uses RLUSD for its On-Demand Liquidity payments, simplifying cross-border payments using one-to-one direct USD streams. Functionality such as clawback ability has also helped to calm risk-shy institutions by providing managed freezes for situations of regulation.

RLUSD’s NYDFS compliance provides an additional assurance of trust, and it is, therefore, the choice of choice for enterprise-level settlements in increasing regulatory oversight.

XRPL’s DeFi and ETF Expansion

In addition to payments, RLUSD is pushing the XRP Ledger to become a full-sized DeFi platform. With the introduction of an EVM sidechain, Ethereum applications are now able to access XRPL’s low costs and high speeds and still get access to RLUSD’s institutional-level depth. 

This dual-pronged structure is attracting builders who are interested in bringing DeFi agility and institutional-level stability.

XRP-associated ETFs are also gathering traction, with funds flowing into leveraged and spot offerings before year-end. Companies such as Hidden Road are combining RLUSD with XRP to provide on- and off-ramps with ease and instill the stablecoin deeper within institutional finance.

Ripple’s long-term goal is to complete a complete financial stack, from lending to brokerage, from payments to banking services, with RLUSD being the connecting link. RLUSD and XRPL may become the foundation of a world blockchain-enabled financial system if they keep on trending.

Related Reading: Ripple and Securitize Unlock $700M RLUSD Liquidity with BlackRock and VanEck Funds