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Ripple has officially announced that its USD-backed stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD) will launch on Tuesday, December 17, 2024.

Initially, the stablecoin will be available on exchanges such as Uphold, Bitso, MoonPay, Archax and CoinMENA. Additional listings on Bullish, Bitstamp, Mercado Bitcoin, Independent Reserve, Zero Hash and others are expected in the coming weeks.

According to Ripple’s press release, RLUSD will be fully backed by US dollar deposits, US treasuries and cash equivalents.

“Ripple made a conscious early decision to launch our stablecoin under the NYDFS Limited Purpose Trust Company Charter, widely considered the world’s leading regulatory standard,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple.

RLUSD operates on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchains, providing flexibility and scalability for a variety of financial use cases.

Ripple Payments plans to integrate RLUSD into its global payments network, which has already processed over $70 billion in payment volume across more than 90 payout markets.

Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and Kenneth Montgomery, former COO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, have joined RLUSD’s Advisory Board.

“Stablecoins could become the backbone of private payments by providing a secure, scalable and efficient alternative to traditional systems,” said Rajan.

Ripple’s XRP token also saw a surge following the announcement, rising 8% and trading at $2.56, with a market cap of $146 billion.

This makes XRP the third largest crypto asset by market cap, surpassing Tether (USDT), which has a market cap of $140 billion.

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