Ripple mints $133.3M RLUSD in a day as stablecoin supply expands

Ripple minted $133.3 million of its RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger on Aug. 3, according to the Ripple stablecoin tracker, one of the largest single-day supply expansions since the token's launch.

The tracker, which monitors RLUSD issuance on-chain, recorded the mint as Ripple expands supply of the dollar-pegged token. RLUSD is designed to maintain a 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar and is issued on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum.

The minting follows a period of growing RLUSD adoption in decentralized finance. Flare's wrapped XRP (FXRP) was approved as collateral in a $280 million lending pool of RLUSD on Ethereum, managed by Sentora on Morpho Blue, allowing XRP holders to borrow against their positions without selling. Roughly 155 million FXRP has been minted since launch, according to Flare co-founder and CEO Hugo Philion.

The supply expansion strengthens Ripple's position in the stablecoin market against Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC. RLUSD also serves as the quote asset in the XRP Ledger's built-in decentralized exchange, where liquidity providers earn a share of trading fees.

The Aug. 3 mint adds to a steady build-out of RLUSD supply as Ripple pushes the stablecoin into both payments and DeFi. The token's integration with the XRP Ledger's native DEX gives XRP holders a dollar-denominated asset for liquidity provision, while the FXRP collateral approval on Ethereum opens borrowing opportunities for XRP holders in the broader DeFi ecosystem.

The XRP Ledger operates on a federated consensus model, where transactions are confirmed by trusted validators rather than proof-of-stake or proof-of-work. The network destroys transaction fees rather than distributing them to validators, which means XRP holders cannot earn native staking rewards. RLUSD's presence on the ledger gives XRP holders a way to earn yield through liquidity provision on the built-in DEX or by using the stablecoin as collateral in DeFi applications.

Flare's Philion has said that XRP is "one of the largest assets in crypto and one of the least used in DeFi," and that having an institutional risk team underwrite FXRP on Ethereum mainnet counts for more than another bridge listing. The Sentora approval of FXRP as collateral in the RLUSD lending pool represents a step toward bringing XRP into DeFi, though the process remains multi-step: users must mint FXRP through Flare's FAssets system, bridge it to Ethereum via Stargate, deposit it into the market, and borrow at their chosen loan-to-value ratio.

Scale remains an open question. The new FXRP/RLUSD market on Morpho Blue opens with what Flare describes as a "conservative supply cap" that may rise as usage grows. Flare is developing tools through Smart Accounts that would let holders authorize the entire borrowing flow directly from an XRP Ledger wallet, with direct XRPL-to-Ethereum minting also in development.

The minting activity comes as Ripple competes for share in a stablecoin market dominated by Tether and Circle. RLUSD's expansion on the XRP Ledger gives the network a native dollar-denominated asset, potentially increasing the ledger's utility for payments and decentralized finance applications. As FXRP integration matures and Flare streamlines the borrowing flow, RLUSD supply growth is likely to continue tracking demand from both XRP holders and institutional users.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.