9 December 2025
The RLUSD stablecoin of Ripple growing rapidly on Ethereum, rather than its own XRP The company’s Ledger (XRPL). According to data from CryptoSlate, the total circulating supply of RLUSD has grown to $1,26 billion in the first year after its launch. Of this, approximately $1,03 billion, or 82% of the total supply, is on Ethereum, while the remaining $235 million is on XRPL.
These numbers indicate a clear market preference for the deep liquidity and composability of the Ethereum Virtual Machine over the more compliance-focused architecture of the XRPL.
The primary cause of this gap is the maturity of the underlying financial infrastructure. On Ethereum, RLUSD has established itself in an environment where dollar liquidity is already deeply entrenched. Data from DeFiLlama confirms that Ethereum outperforms all other chains in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL) and stablecoin supply, providing a ready-made ecosystem for new assets.
Any new stablecoin that can connect to major DeFi protocols like Aave, Curve, and Uniswap immediately benefits from existing routing mechanisms, collateral structures, and risk models. RLUSD's presence on Aave and Curve confirms this; the USDC/RLUSD pool on Curve currently holds approximately $74 million in liquidity, making it one of the largest stablecoin pools on the platform. For institutional treasuries, market makers, and arbitrage platforms, this liquidity is crucial. It ensures that trades worth tens of millions can be executed with low slippage, enabling the basis trading and yield-farming strategies that fuel modern cryptocurrencies.
In contrast, XRPL is still in the early stages of building a DeFi foundation. The protocol’s automated market maker (AMM) didn’t go live until 2024, meaning any RLUSD-related pools on the ledger, such as the USD/RLUSD pair created in January 2025, still suffer from limited depth and follow-through. Moreover, the XRPL AMM’s design hasn’t yet attracted the liquidity providers we see in EVM ecosystems. As a result, a dollar’s worth of RLUSD on XRPL currently offers far less opportunity for swaps, leverage, or return than the same dollar invested on Ethereum.
Critics might argue that RLUSD's Ethereum supply is merely "embellishment figures," large sums minted but sitting idle. However, a deeper analysis of the on-chain transfer data refutes this assertion. RLUSD demonstrates genuine product-market fit on Ethereum, characterized by high circulation and recurring usage. According to Token Terminal, the weekly transfer volume of RLUSD on Ethereum is now approximately $1,0 billion, a dramatic increase compared to an average of $66 million at the beginning of the year.
The data shows a clear structural shift, with a steady rise in the first half of 2025, followed by a restructuring to a significantly higher level in the second half. Crucially, recent weeks have seen activity cluster around this elevated level, rather than peaks and troughs. In terms of market structure, a rising base typically indicates a transition from a distribution phase to a usage phase. This implies that the token is being used in ongoing, recurring flows, such as institutional settlements and commercial payments, rather than isolated speculative events. The transfer counts support this assertion; the weekly number of transactions on Ethereum now averages 7.000, up from 240 in January.
The fact that the number of transfers increases in line with volume is an important health indicator. If volume were to rise while the counts remained flat, this would indicate a market dominated by a few whales moving enormous amounts. The simultaneous increase, on the other hand, points to broader participation. Furthermore, the holding data suggests healthy risk diversification. According to data from Etherscan, Ripple's RLUSD attracted approximately 6.400 on-chain holders on Ethereum by the end of November 2025, compared to only 750 at the beginning of the year. While the supply growth is driven by chunky issuances, the number of holders is showing a gradual increase.
The structural divergence between the two networks explains why the “permissionless” growth cycle favors Ethereum. On Ethereum, RLUSD functions as a standard ERC-20 token. Wallets, custodians, accounting middleware, and DeFi aggregators are already optimized for this standard. Once a protocol like Curve integrates a token, it becomes part of the standard dollar-pair universe alongside USDC and USDT, accessible to any address without prior authorization. On the other hand, the design of XRPL, while technically robust, imposes significantly more friction on the user.
To hold RLUSD on the native ledger, users are typically required to maintain an XRP balance to meet reservation requirements and configure a specific trustline to the issuer. If the issuer enables the “RequireAuth” setting, which is designed for strict compliance and granular oversight, accounts will be required to be explicitly whitelisted before they can receive tokens. While Ripple notes that these features are attractive to banks that require explicit oversight, they also hinder organic adoption. The compliance tools that make XRPL attractive to regulated entities are the same features that slow wallet-to-wallet distribution. In a market where capital seeks the path of least resistance, the operational burden of trustlines makes XRPL less competitive for the high-frequency and automated flows that characterize DeFi.
Despite the uneven distribution of the ledger, RLUSD's overall trajectory places Ripple within reach of a key market tier. Token Terminal has stated that Ripple would establish itself as the third-largest stablecoin issuer in the world, behind only established peers Tether and Circle, if RLUSD's market cap were to increase 10x from current levels. Given this, RLUSD's growth hinges heavily on whether Ripple can leverage its success on Ethereum to ultimately boost the native chain. A conservative projection for the next six months sees RLUSD's Ethereum supply rising from approximately $1,0 billion to a range of $1,4 billion to $1,7 billion. This assumes liquidity on Curve remains in the $60 million to $100 million range and that demand from CEX and OTC continues to grow.
Under this scenario, XRPL would likely accumulate more liquidity over time, but would remain a small fraction of total issuance. A more aggressive “catch-up” scenario for XRPL, on the other hand, would require deliberate market intervention. If Ripple or its partners commit to multi-month AMM reward programs and can effectively hide trustline configurations behind a few clicks of wallet interfaces, the native ledger could begin to undermine Ethereum’s lead. With these levers, liquidity on XRPL could plausibly reach $500 million and claim up to 25% of the total supply.
However, the downside risk to the native ledger is real. If Ethereum consolidates its lead and expands the Curve USDC/RLUSD pool to over $150 million, network effects could become insurmountable. In that scenario, Ethereum could potentially hold 80% to 90% of the supply indefinitely. For now, Ripple finds itself in a paradoxical position: to achieve its ambition of becoming a top-tier stablecoin issuer, it must rely on the infrastructure of its largest competitor.
How does RLUSD's growth on Ethereum impact the crypto market?
The growth of RLUSD on Ethereum illustrates the attractiveness of the Ethereum ecosystem for new assets, especially stablecoins, and confirms the importance of liquidity and accessibility in today's crypto markets.
What are the main challenges for RLUSD on XRPL?
The main challenges include high friction in user interaction, compliance requirements, and the not yet established DeFi ecosystem on XRPL, which makes this network less attractive for fast and flexible transactions.
What is the outlook for RLUSD's future growth?
The outlook is positive as long as Ripple can leverage its success on Ethereum to increase adoption and liquidity on XRPL. However, the reliance on Ethereum poses a strategic challenge to long-term growth.
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Ethereum (ETH)
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