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Robinhood will bring Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin to its app this year and run its treasury on Ripple software
Summary
Ripple and Robinhood announced Tuesday that Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is live on Robinhood Chain and on Robinhood-owned exchange Bitstamp, with a launch in the main Robinhood app planned for later this year, CoinDesk, Cointelegraph and Decrypt reported.
The deal also has Bitstamp using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for institutional settlement and Robinhood adopting Ripple Treasury software to manage its own global cash operations, while Ripple Prime plans to add perpetual futures trading on Bitstamp later this year.
CoinDesk noted the move is unusual because Robinhood helped found the Global Dollar Network, which promotes Paxos's rival USDG stablecoin, and said it is unclear how the two tokens will coexist in Robinhood's products; Robinhood did not immediately respond to CoinDesk.
Robinhood reported 28.6 million funded customers as of August, though CoinDesk said the companies have not said how many will be eligible to use RLUSD in the app.
Key facts
- "From bringing RLUSD to retail and institutional markets to helping Robinhood manage its own treasury operations, this partnership reflects growing institutional demand," Ripple President Monica Long said, as quoted by CoinDesk.
- RLUSD's market capitalization tops $2.5 billion, according to Ripple's release as cited by CoinDesk and Decrypt; Cointelegraph put it at $2.57 billion, with nearly $1 billion issued on the XRP Ledger, citing DefiLlama.
- Ripple Prime already provides Bitstamp with lending and margin financing across roughly 20 digital assets, Decrypt and CoinDesk reported.
- "Utility is what moves stablecoins forward," said Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto and International, as quoted by Decrypt.
- Ripple also said BNY now supports custody of XRP and RLUSD on its Digital Asset Custody platform, and the two plan to let BNY clients mint and redeem RLUSD directly through the bank, Cointelegraph reported.
- Separately, Ripple partnered with working-capital platform C2FO to settle its Instant Pay invoice service in RLUSD on the XRP Ledger; a C2FO spokesperson told Cointelegraph the service is in testing, with first transactions expected by year-end.
- The announcements came a day after Ripple received final OCC approval for its national trust bank, Cointelegraph and CoinDesk noted.
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