What is RLUSD, and what does it mean for XRP?

The full answer

Ripple USD, or RLUSD, is a stablecoin: a token designed to hold a value of one US dollar. Its issuer is Standard Custody & Trust Company, LLC, a subsidiary of Ripple Labs and a New York limited purpose trust company.[1] Ripple’s transparency page says the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) charters and supervises the issuer, and that the reserves sit in segregated accounts.[2]

Who issues RLUSD, and under what rules?

The August 2026 reserve report says its criteria come from a June 8, 2022 NYDFS letter on dollar-backed stablecoins. In it, the issuer’s management asserts that the reserve was worth at least as much as the tokens outstanding and that the conditions NYDFS sets on reserve assets were met. The report defines the reserve as “segregated from the proprietary assets of the Company.”[1] An independent accountant examined that assertion and, in a report dated September 29, 2026, found it “fairly stated, in all material respects.”[1] The report text does not name the firm. Ripple’s documentation says the monthly reports are “conducted by the independent third-party accounting firm, Deloitte.”[8]

Ripple describes RLUSD as “fully backed by a segregated reserve of cash and cash equivalents” and “redeemable 1:1 for US dollars.”[3] The user terms narrow that promise. Only a Customer, meaning a holder with a customer account at Ripple to whom the RLUSD Customer Agreement applies, can redeem directly, at one dollar per token less fees.[4] The page on redemption and what happens if the issuer fails covers those terms.

What do the latest RLUSD reserve figures show?

The most recent examined report covers August 2026. Its two report dates show:[1]

The August report’s breakdown by asset class is printed as an image that our text check could not read. The text of the July 2026 report available here stops at the line introducing its asset table, so that table has not been checked either.[9] The issuer’s figures from it are listed, marked as unchecked, under what is still open. The page on what backs RLUSD goes through that mix.

Ripple’s dashboard gives a later figure: $2,395.6 million RLUSD in circulation and $2,517.7 million in reserve funds as of September 3, 2026.[2] That is a company number. No accountant’s report for that date was public.

How has the reserve surplus moved across monthly attestations?

The surplus is the reserve minus the tokens outstanding. From the figures above, it was about $114 million (6.5%) on August 17, 2026 and about $120 million (5.2%) on August 31. Ripple’s September 3 dashboard implies about $122 million (5.1%). These are calculations from the reported figures. The first two come from an examined report; the third does not.

Ripple has listed monthly reports since December 2024 and says each is available “no more than 30 days after the month end.”[2] The earlier files have not been reviewed, so this page does not show a longer trend. A related page tracks how much RLUSD exists and how fast it is growing, including its size next to USDT and USDC.

Ripple’s June 2026 announcements cited “US$1.7 billion in market capitalization.”[7] The announcements do not say how or on what date that figure was measured, so this page relies on the examined counts.

Is RLUSD on the XRP Ledger?

Yes. The August report lists seven networks approved by NYDFS for RLUSD: the XRP Ledger, Ethereum, Base, Unichain, Optimism, Ink and the XRPL EVM Sidechain.[1] Ripple’s product page says RLUSD is “natively issued on XRP Ledger, Ethereum, and other blockchains.”[3] CCN, reporting on August 20, 2026 on Blockworks’ State of XRP report, said RLUSD supply on the XRP Ledger climbed by 257% to $676.9 million in the second quarter of 2026, representing 82% of the ledger’s stablecoin market at quarter-end. Analytics Insight, citing DefiLlama, reported on September 25, 2026 that RLUSD accounted for about $1.067 billion, equal to 92.1% of the roughly $1.159 billion XRP Ledger stablecoin market it tracked.

What does RLUSD mean for XRP?

XRP and RLUSD are separate assets. Ripple’s XRP page calls XRP “the native token of the XRP Ledger” and says it “facilitates transactions on the network, protects the ledger from spam, and bridges currencies in the native decentralized exchange.”[5] RLUSD is a token issued on that ledger, and on six other networks. The same page describes Ripple as a company “whose solutions use XRP, RLUSD, and other digital assets.”[5]

Whether a stablecoin on the ledger adds trading pairs and payment flows that touch XRP, and whether RLUSD payments actually pass through XRP, is covered in whether RLUSD payments route through XRP. RLUSD’s user terms give Ripple “all net returns earned on assets held in the Reserve to the extent not required to maintain the Reserve at the minimum market value,” a minimum the terms set at one dollar per RLUSD outstanding.[4] The page on who earns RLUSD’s reserve interest sets out the terms.

What is the case that RLUSD works against XRP?

The strongest point comes from Ripple itself. Its payments page tells businesses they can “pay in, pay out, and settle in RLUSD, USDC, USDT, or fiat.”[6] XRP is not in that list. On that reading of the list, a payment that starts and ends in a stablecoin would not need XRP as a bridge. The case that stablecoins could take payment flows away from XRP is set out on its own page, and the question of whether they replace XRP on its own ledger has another.

The reserve rules RLUSD may face under federal law are covered in what reserve rules a US dollar stablecoin must follow.