Ripple’s RLUSD Might Finally Make XRP Relevant—Or Just Give Us Something to Complain About 🧐

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You ever notice how Ripple’s fancy stablecoin, RLUSD, is blowing up everywhere except the one place it’s supposed to matter—on the XRP Ledger? Yeah, join the club. It’s like hosting a dinner party and everyone’s hanging out across the street at Ethereum’s house, eating their food, using their bathroom, not even bringing you a bottle of wine. Out of $455 million RLUSD in circulation, about $390 million is cozying up on Ethereum. XRPL? It’s just over here, twiddling its digital thumbs with a measly $65 million.

XRP’s Advantage—You Gotta Have Faith? 🦄

So this XRP aficionado, Crypto Eri, is out there on X (which, by the way, I’m still calling Twitter) telling everyone Ripple’s not in a rush. They’re “playing the long game.” Oh good, because waiting for XRPL to get some RLUSD love is starting to feel like waiting for the Mets to win the World Series. “Just you wait,” they say, soon RLUSD will make XRP transactions faster and cheaper than on Ethereum. Yeah yeah, sure, I’ll believe it when I see it… or when my hair grows back.

Now, Ripple launches this sidechain thing that gets Ethereum-style fancy contracts running on XRPL. Boom—1,400 contracts drop in a week, bridges to 80 other chains. Sounds big. But guess what: The big RLUSD bucks are still hanging out with Ethereum. It’s like buying a new couch and the cat still sits in the box it came in. One skeptic wasn’t buying Eri’s pitch: “RLUSD helps ETH way more than XRP.” And Eri, with the honesty of someone admitting they did eat the last slice of pizza, just shrugs—“correct, for now.” Classic. The optimism is almost adorable.

Ripple’s got more angles than my grandma’s orthotics. They’re applying for some big-shot national banking license. They want a Federal Reserve master account—because nothing screams “crypto innovation” like getting into bed with the central bank, am I right? If the U.S. passes the whole GENIUS Act thing (which honestly sounds less like a law and more like a show Sheldon from Big Bang Theory would binge), Ripple could get themselves a gold star from regulators, and maybe—just maybe—this thing goes mainstream. CEO Brad Garlinghouse even calls it a “unique benchmark for trust.” Sure, Brad. Whatever you say, pal.

Eri’s got optimism like someone who bought bitcoin at the top—she says with the big-boy banking license, RLUSD reserves will finally sit with the Fed. Look at that, bringing crypto and traditional finance together. It’s like cats and dogs living together—mass hysteria!

So maybe one day RLUSD finally hops over to XRPL, and every RLUSD dollar transacted pays XRP fees, making Ripple and all the XRP bag-holders a little bit richer. Or,—and here’s a thought—maybe people just keep using Ethereum because, you know, it’s working already. Either way, analysts are salivating at the idea that DeFi people will soon flock back to XRPL for “low-cost consensus.” I’m holding my breath… but not really.

For now, RLUSD is all about Ethereum and DeFi, and the skeptics are out there like, “It’s always gonna be this way.” Eri basically says, “Let’s see.” Now that’s some real Seinfeldian non-committal energy—yada yada, we’ll touch base, yada yada, I’ve got meetings.

So where does that leave us? Technical rails? Sure. Regulatory stuff? In the works. Actual utility for XRP? Eh, put a pin in it. Will everything come together so RLUSD finally brings a flood of action to XRPL and gives XRP the utility everyone’s been yammering about since 2018? That, my friend, is a billion-dollar question. Or, given the way things move in crypto, maybe just a really expensive joke. In the meantime, XRP is hanging at $2.27. Buy, sell, hold, kvetch—do whatever you want. You’re probably still waiting.

Chart that might actually make you feel something

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2025-07-08 20:11