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What happened?
Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD touched a new all-time high in circulating supply this week, reaching $2.442 billion. The milestone continues a steady climb through 2026: supply stood at roughly $1.7 billion in mid-August, passed $2 billion by late August, and had reached $2.32 billion by early September, putting monthly growth at a consistent 15 to 20 percent. The XRP Ledger is now cited as the industry’s 11th largest stablecoin chain by native supply.
Why does it matter?
RLUSD’s growth is happening while XRP itself has struggled. XRP’s price is down roughly 27 percent year to date even as RLUSD’s market cap has grown more than tenfold over the same period. That divergence points to institutions using RLUSD as settlement and treasury infrastructure independent of XRP’s own price performance. Rising stablecoin supply on a network signals expanding liquidity and real-world usage, but it runs on a separate track from demand for the native token itself, and the two should not be read as moving together.
What can readers watch or consider?
Spot XRP ETFs have been described as attracting large amounts of capital this week, though daily inflows have been running in the low single-digit millions in recent sessions, with cumulative inflows since launch approaching the $1 billion mark over a longer window. The more precise read is that XRP ETF demand has been steady rather than surging, while RLUSD’s supply growth has been the sharper and more consistent trend of the two.
What could change the interpretation?
A sustained pickup in daily XRP ETF inflows, rather than an isolated large session, would support a narrative of accelerating institutional demand running alongside RLUSD’s growth. Absent that, the more accurate framing is that RLUSD adoption and XRP price and ETF demand are decoupling, which is arguably the more significant story for institutional crypto infrastructure than XRP’s price action itself.
What to watch next:
Watch whether RLUSD’s supply growth holds its recent monthly pace and whether XRP ETF inflows shift from steady to accelerating. The practical takeaway: RLUSD’s climb is a genuine and verifiable adoption story, but it isn’t a proxy for XRP demand or price strength unless the ETF flow data starts to reflect that connection.
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For crypto traders, XRP ETFs are live and tradeable in the US. Several launched through late 2026, including:
- Franklin Templeton XRP ETF (XRPZ)
- Bitwise XRP ETF
- Canary XRP ETF
- REX-Osprey XRP ETF
- Grayscale XRP Trust/Fund
Which XRP ETF carries the liquidity?
Of the five spot XRP ETFs, Bitwise’s fund (ticker: XRP) is the clear leader on both trading volume and size, carrying roughly $22 to 28 million in daily volume and around $520 million in assets under management, both comfortably the largest in the group.
Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ is a distant second on both measures, with daily volume in the $7 to 8 million range and about $388 million in assets, though it carries the lowest expense ratio of the group at 0.19 percent against Bitwise’s 0.34 percent.
Canary Capital, Grayscale and REX-Osprey trail well behind on both volume and assets, with REX-Osprey the thinnest of the five. For traders prioritising ease of entry and exit, Bitwise’s depth of volume stands out as the practical choice among the five; those weighing cost over liquidity may still find Franklin Templeton’s lower fee more attractive for longer holding periods.
XRP’s chart tells a clear story around the middle of August.
The token fell to a yearly low of $0.98 on August 14, then staged a sharp reversal beginning around August 19, which is exactly where the Bitwise ETF chart shows that long lower wick followed by a violent green candle. From there, XRP surged roughly 56 percent in a single week, its sharpest weekly move since the post SEC settlement rally in August 2025.
Several drivers converged at once to produce that move. Short interest in XRP perpetuals had reached its highest level since April, and heavy short liquidations amplified the rally once buying pressure took hold. Bitcoin’s breakout above $77,000 created a rising tide effect across crypto more broadly, lifting XRP alongside it. Spot XRP ETFs recorded a record $110.49 million in inflows over the week, pushing cumulative inflows past $1.66 billion since launch. The US Treasury’s expansion of long term bond buybacks has also been linked by some reporting to a broader risk on move across crypto that same week. Underpinning the move, fundamental developments including the Hidden Road integration going live and RLUSD gaining traction as a settlement layer gave the rally more substance than a pure leverage driven squeeze.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.
