Ripple Labs recently celebrated one year of its RLUSD stablecoin. To celebrate the first anniversary of the stablecoin, Standard Custody CEO Jack McDonald highlighted five milestones attained.
RLUSD hits its first anniversary
According to McDonald, RLUSD, which launched on Dec. 17, 2024, is ending 2025 among the top five USD stablecoins in record time.
Additionally, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) gave conditional approval for Ripple to establish a National Trust Bank.
This adds federal oversight in addition to existing state regulation from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). It also sets a new high standard for stablecoin compliance, providing stronger protections for RLUSD holders.
Third, RLUSD expanded to new chains via Wormhole, a cross-chain interoperability protocol. This allows seamless, native movement of RLUSD without wrapped tokens. It is launching on major Ethereum layer-2 networks, including Optimism, Base, Inkonchain and Unichain.
Another notable milestone in year one is RLUSD’s recognition by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
FRSA officially recognized RLUSD as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token. As a result, licensed institutions in ADGM could use RLUSD as collateral on exchanges and prime brokerage platforms.
Furthermore, Gemini crypto exchange added support for RLUSD on the XRPL Ledger (XRPL). This enables near-instant settlement with very low fees, compared to networks like Ethereum. Users can hold a single RLUSD balance on Gemini and move it seamlessly between XRPL and Ethereum.
Why RLUSD expanding fast
The RLUSD stablecoin has seen massive adoption since it launched a year ago. This is driven by institutional demand, regulatory approvals, multichain expansion and enhanced exchange support.
It positions RLUSD as a compliant, enterprise-focused stablecoin competing in payments, DeFi and tokenized assets, while emphasizing transparency and trust.
The stablecoin is backed by U.S. dollars and other cash equivalents, with reserves held in segregated accounts. RLUSD surpassed a $1 billion market capitalization in November 2025. It is now one of the biggest USD-backed stablecoins, following such giants as Tether (USDT), Circle’s USDC and PayPal’s PYUSD.
Given its growth trajectory, RLUSD is on its way to join the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. As of press time, CoinMarketCap data revealed that RLUSD is the 52nd largest crypto, with a market cap of $1.33 billion.
Moreover, Ripple has also moved to increase RLUSD’s utility by partnering with fintechs like RedotPay, Yellow Card and Chipper Cash.