What Is RLUSD? Ripple's USD-Backed Stablecoin, Explained

RLUSD is a stablecoin issued by Ripple — and a genuinely common point of confusion is that it's a completely different kind of asset from XRP, despite coming from the same company. Here's the general picture.

RLUSD's specific market details — exchange availability, current market capitalization, and the precise regulatory status in any given jurisdiction — change frequently. This article describes the general concept and positioning; check current, official sources for up-to-date specifics.

What a stablecoin is, generally

A stablecoin is a crypto asset designed to hold a stable value, most commonly pegged to a fiat currency like the US dollar, rather than floating freely with the broader crypto market the way XRP, Bitcoin, or Ethereum do. Fiat-backed stablecoins typically aim to maintain that peg by holding reserves (cash and cash-equivalent assets) roughly equal to the number of tokens in circulation.

RLUSD specifically

RLUSD is Ripple's own entry into this category: a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, positioned as fully-reserved and issued under a regulatory framework, issued on more than one chain (including the XRP Ledger). Ripple's stated goal with RLUSD is to offer a regulated, transparent dollar-denominated digital asset for use cases like payments and liquidity — distinct from, and not a replacement for, XRP itself.

Why this is easy to confuse with XRP

Both are associated with the same company and both can appear in the same XRPL wallets and interfaces, which leads some people to assume they're the same thing or that one is just a "version" of the other. They aren't:

XRP floats freely in price, has a fixed total supply set at the ledger's genesis, and is the XRPL's native asset (see our All-Time High Tracker for how much its price actually moves).
RLUSD aims to stay pegged at roughly $1, is backed by reserves rather than having a fixed supply, and exists specifically to provide price stability that XRP, by design, doesn't offer.

Worth knowing before you run any numbers: this site's calculator is built around XRP specifically, not RLUSD.

Why a company like Ripple would launch a stablecoin

A regulated dollar stablecoin serves different purposes than a volatile asset: it can be used for settlement, as a stable store of value between transactions, or as a bridge in payment flows where price stability matters more than potential appreciation — complementary to, not competing with, XRP's role as a fast, low-cost bridge asset in products like On-Demand Liquidity.

Using this site's tools

This site's calculators — including the DCA Calculator and Tax Calculator — are built specifically around XRP's historical and live price data, not RLUSD, since RLUSD's entire design goal is to not have interesting price history to calculate.

For the broader distinction this same confusion stems from, see What Is Ripple (the Company) and How Is It Different From XRP (the Token)?