RLUSD hits $1.7B on-chain, wins Japan and EU approvals

RLUSD reached an on-chain all-time high of about $1.7 billion in May 2026 and finished Q2 with roughly $1.5–$1.54 billion in circulation. The stablecoin added about $370 million in April, a roughly 30% single-month increase from a Q2 opening supply near $1.33 billion. Daily trading volume during the quarter ranged from about $105 million to $224 million across more than 95 active markets, and RLUSD traded close to $1.00 with normal deviations near 25 basis points.

Standard Custody and Trust Company, a Ripple subsidiary supervised by the New York Department of Financial Services, issues RLUSD. During Q2 the issuer received Type 4 electronic payment instrument approval from Japan’s JFSA on June 25 and distribution in Japan began through SBI VC Trade with an initial per-transaction cap of about one million yen on Ethereum. On July 6 Ripple obtained MiCA CASP authorization from Luxembourg’s regulator for its payment services across the European Economic Area; that authorization covers payment services but does not include the separate MiCA EMT permission required for a dollar-backed stablecoin to be listed to EU retail investors. RLUSD also holds Dubai DFSA authorization and the issuer received a conditional OCC national trust bank charter approval in December 2025, pending final federal action.

Reserves backing RLUSD are held in segregated accounts at BNY Mellon and consist of US dollar deposits, short-term US Treasury securities and cash equivalents. Monthly third-party reserve attestations are published. The reserve holdings do not include Bitcoin, corporate debt or other volatile assets.

On-chain distribution shifted during Q2. Early in the quarter about 80–82% of supply sat on Ethereum and 18–20% on the XRP Ledger. By late June ledger data showed near parity, with roughly $792 million on the XRP Ledger and about $793 million on Ethereum; XRPL on-chain supply roughly doubled during the quarter to about $660 million. Wormhole’s Native Token Transfers standard enabled RLUSD to move natively across more than 40 blockchains, and a planned public L2 rollout targeting Optimism, Base, Ink and Unichain is awaiting final NYDFS approval.

Commercial integrations and institutional use expanded in Q2. Mastercard added settlement support for RLUSD across eight blockchain networks including the XRP Ledger, an arrangement Ripple described as “a major signal that stables are moving deeper into the world’s most critical payment infrastructure.” On June 16 Ripple invested in Flutterwave at a $3.2 billion Series E valuation and designated RLUSD as a settlement asset for more than one billion annual payment transactions handled by Flutterwave. Exchange access widened: OKX listed RLUSD in April with 280-plus trading pairs and derivatives collateral support, Gate.io added a listing in June, and Binance listed the token earlier in January. Institutional users reported to be using RLUSD include a major asset manager employing it as a redemption mechanism for a tokenized fund and an institutional trading venue using it as collateral.

Pending items for the second half of 2026 include final federal approval of the OCC charter, a potential filing for MiCA EMT authorization to permit EU retail exchange listings, any change to Japan’s transaction cap for larger transfers, confirmation of whether XRPL supply will overtake Ethereum on-chain, and measurable on-chain volume from the Flutterwave settlement deployment in African payment corridors.