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Ripple Takes RLUSD Multichain
According to a Monday announcement, Ripple is taking RLUSD to layer 2 networks for the first time. The testing phase begins on Optimism, Coinbase’s Base, Kraken’s Ink, and Uniswap’s Unichain, ahead of a broader launch expected next year, pending regulatory approval by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
The pilot will be powered by Wormhole’s Native Token Transfers (NTT) standard, a system designed to move RLUSD freely across chains without relying on wrapped assets. This approach maintains liquidity and creates a regulatory-compliant path for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi) expansion across networks optimized for speed and lower costs.
Initially debuted on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger networks, RLUSD is issued under a NYDFS Trust Charter. Ripple secured conditional approval for a federal trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) last week, which would make RLUSD the first stablecoin with both state and federal regulatory oversight.
“Stablecoins are the gateway to DeFi and institutional adoption,” Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoin at Ripple, said in a statement. “By launching RLUSD — the first U.S. trust-regulated stablecoin on these L2 networks — we are not just expanding utility; we are setting the definitive standard where compliance and on-chain efficiency converge.”
 
Utility Boost For RLUSD And XRP
Monday’s integration isn’t Ripple’s first collaboration with Wormhole. Back in June, the company extended XRP Ledger’s multichain interoperability via an integration with the cross-chain interoperability protocol. The integration aligns with Ripple’s goal to position the XRPL as a critical component of on-chain, institutional finance.
As ZyCrypto recently reported, Hex Trust announced it will issue and custody wrapped XRP (wXRP), a 1:1-backed representation of native XRP designed to boost XRP’s DeFi and cross-chain utility beyond the XRP Ledger. wXRP will be usable alongside RLUSD on Ethereum and additional supported chains, including Solana, Optimism, and HyperEVM.
After emerging from a protracted legal brawl with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Ripple last month raised $500 million at an eye-popping $40 billion valuation, in a round led by investors from Fortress Investment Group and affiliates of Citadel Securities, and funds tied to Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, and Brevan Howard.