RLUSD supply hit $1.26B, and 82% of it now sits on Ethereum, not XRPL

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is quickly increasing on Ethereum somewhat than the corporate’s native XRP Ledger (XRPL).

According to CryptoSlate information, RLUSD’s whole circulating supply has surged to $1.26 billion inside 12 months of its launch. Of this, roughly $1.03 billion, or 82% of the overall supply, resides on Ethereum, whereas the $235 million steadiness is on XRPL.

These numbers present that the market appears to favor the deep liquidity and composability of the Ethereum Virtual Machine over the extra compliance-focused architecture of the XRPL.

Why RLUSD is rising on Ethereum

The main driver of this disparity is the maturity of the underlying monetary stack.

On Ethereum, RLUSD entered an setting the place greenback liquidity is already entrenched. Data from DeFiLlama confirms that Ethereum continues to guide all chains in whole worth locked (TVL) and stablecoin supply, offering a turnkey ecosystem for brand new property.

So, any new stablecoin that may plug into main DeFi protocols like Aave, Curve, and Uniswap instantly advantages from present routing engines, collateral frameworks, and danger fashions.

RLUSD’s presence on Aave and Curve confirms this. The USDC/RLUSD pool on Curve now holds roughly $74 million in liquidity, rating it among the many bigger stablecoin swimming pools on the platform.

For institutional treasuries, market makers, and arbitrage desks, this depth is non-negotiable. It ensures low-slippage execution for trades within the tens of hundreds of thousands, facilitating foundation trades and yield-farming methods that drive fashionable crypto capital markets.

On the opposite hand, the XRPL continues to be within the nascent levels of constructing a DeFi basis. Its protocol-level automated market maker (AMM) went reside solely in 2024. So all RLUSD-related swimming pools on the ledger, such because the USD/RLUSD pair created in January 2025, nonetheless endure from shallow depth and restricted follow-through.

Moreover, the XRPL AMM design has not but attracted the liquidity supplier density seen in EVM ecosystems.

Consequently, a greenback of RLUSD positioned on XRPL presently finds far fewer venues for swaps, leverage, or yield than the identical greenback deployed on Ethereum.

RLUSD’s rising consumer base on Ethereum

Critics may argue that RLUSD’s Ethereum supply is merely “self-importance metrics,” giant sums minted however sitting idle.

However, a deeper evaluation of on-chain switch information refutes this. RLUSD is exhibiting a real product-market match with Ethereum, characterised by high velocity and recurring utilization.

According to Token Terminal, weekly RLUSD switch quantity on Ethereum now averages roughly $1.0 billion, a dramatic enhance from the $66 million common seen in the beginning of the yr.

The information reveals an obvious structural shift of a gentle upward development via the primary half of 2025, adopted by a “re-basing” to a considerably greater flooring within the second half.

Crucially, current weeks present exercise clustering round this elevated stage somewhat than spiking and reverting. In market construction phrases, a rising baseline sometimes alerts a transition from a distribution section to a utility section.

This implies that the token is being utilized in ongoing, recurring flows, corresponding to institutional settlement and industrial funds, somewhat than remoted speculative occasions.

Transfer counts help this thesis. Weekly transactions on Ethereum now common 7,000, up from 240 in January.

The incontrovertible fact that switch counts are rising in parallel with quantity is a crucial well being indicator. If quantity had been rising whereas counts remained flat, it would counsel a market dominated by just a few whales transferring huge sums. Instead, the concurrent rise factors to broader participation.

Furthermore, the holder information counsel a wholesome dispersion of danger. According to information from Etherscan, Ripple’s RLUSD has attracted roughly 6,400 on-chain holders on Ethereum as of late November 2025, up from simply 750 in the beginning of the yr.

While the supply development has been pushed by “chunky” batch issuances somewhat than drip minting, the holder rely has adopted a clean upward curve.

The friction between RLUSD and XRPL

The structural divergence between the 2 networks explains why the “permissionless” development loop has favored Ethereum.

On Ethereum, RLUSD capabilities as an ordinary ERC-20 token. Wallets, custodians, accounting middleware, and DeFi aggregators are already optimized for this normal.

Once a protocol like Curve “wires in” a token, it turns into half of the usual dollar-pair universe alongside USDC and USDT, accessible to any tackle with out prior authorization.

On the opposite hand, XRPL’s design selections, whereas technically strong, impose considerably greater friction on the consumer.

To maintain RLUSD on the native ledger, customers usually should preserve an XRP steadiness to fulfill reserve necessities and configure a selected trustline to the issuer. If the issuer permits the `RequireAuth` setting, which is a function designed for strict compliance and granular management, accounts have to be explicitly allow-listed earlier than they’ll obtain tokens.

So, whereas Ripple notes that these options attraction to banks that require specific management, they act as a brake on natural adoption.

Essentially, the compliance instruments that make XRPL attractive to regulated entities are the identical options that decelerate wallet-to-wallet distribution.

In a market the place capital seeks the trail of least resistance, the operational burden of trustlines renders XRPL much less aggressive for the high-frequency, automated flows that outline DeFi.

RLUSD’s path to development

Despite the ledger imbalance, the general trajectory of RLUSD places Ripple inside putting distance of a serious market tier.

Token Terminal has acknowledged that Ripple would cement itself because the third-largest stablecoin issuer globally, behind solely the incumbents Tether and Circle, if RLLUSD’s market cap had been to develop 10x from present ranges.

Considering this, RLUSD’s development relies upon closely on whether or not Ripple can leverage its Ethereum success to finally jumpstart its native chain.

A base-case projection for the following six months sees RLUSD’s Ethereum supply climb from roughly $1.0 billion to a spread of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion. This assumes that Curve liquidity stays within the $60 million to $100 million band and that CEX and OTC demand continues to develop.

Under this path, XRPL would possible see its swimming pools accumulate extra liquidity over time however stay a small fraction of the mixture issuance.

Meanwhile, a extra aggressive “catch-up” state of affairs for XRPL would require deliberate market intervention. If Ripple or its companions decide to multi-month AMM reward packages and efficiently masks trustline configurations behind single-click pockets interfaces, the native ledger may start to erode Ethereum’s lead.

With these levers, XRPL liquidity may plausibly attain $500 million and declare as much as 25% of the overall supply.

However, the draw back danger for the native ledger is actual. If Ethereum cements its lead and the Curve USDC/RLUSD pool expands past $150 million, the community results might grow to be insurmountable. In that state of affairs, Ethereum may retain 80% to 90% of the supply indefinitely.

For now, Ripple finds itself in a paradoxical place: to reach its ambition to grow to be a top-tier stablecoin issuer, it should rely on the infrastructure of its greatest rival.

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