RLUSD’s growth over the past year has shifted from exchange-driven speculation to a more functional, settlement-focused utility — and on-chain metrics make that evolution clear. Timeline and liquidity inflection - RLUSD launched in December 2024. Early exchange listings established baseline circulation and pushed market capitalization past $1 billion. - A pivotal moment came with Binance’s January 2026 listing, which broadened access globally and introduced zero-fee trading incentives. That listing acted as a structural liquidity inflection: trading volumes and exchange reserves rose as custodial deposits seeded circulating supply, and withdrawal activation soon enabled on-chain migrations. - On 12 February 2026, XRPL integration opened deposit rails as liquidity continued to mature (Source: Binance). The combined effect strengthened Binance’s stablecoin foothold while adding settlement depth to the XRP Ledger — together advancing RLUSD’s cross-border payment utility and multi-network circulation. Supply, issuance and peg mechanics - By mid-February 2026 RLUSD circulation reached roughly $1.52 billion. Growth drivers included Binance onboarding, institutional inflows and targeted seeding of payment corridors. - Issuance scaled via treasury mints of 59 million, 28.2 million and 35 million tokens, which channeled liquidity into exchanges and DeFi rails as demand rose. - To prevent oversupply, measured burns — including a 2.5 million token burn on Ethereum — helped temper pressure and supported a peg backed above 103% collateralization (Source: DeFiLlama). Chain allocation and use-case split - Chain distribution clarifies deployment intent: Ethereum holds nearly $1.2 billion (about 77–79%) of RLUSD, driven primarily by liquidity provisioning and collateral utility. The XRP Ledger holds roughly $348 million (22–23%), reflecting its role as a settlement routing layer. - As XRPL deposits opened, cross-border throughput improved. This dual-chain footprint deepened exchange liquidity, strengthened DeFi rails on Ethereum, and expanded payment infrastructure on XRPL. On-chain behavior vs. USDT - Though RLUSD’s $1.52 billion supply is tiny compared with Tether’s USDT ($185 billion), on-chain activity reveals a different profile: - RLUSD sees accelerated transfer activity — roughly $6.3 billion moving monthly — indicating higher per-unit velocity through settlement corridors. - USDT records larger absolute flows but lower per-unit velocity, with much of its liquidity parked across exchanges, derivatives venues and DeFi collateral pools. - Chain-level behavior reinforces this split: Ethereum balances skew toward liquidity provisioning, while XRPL allocations are routed faster for payments. Exchange reserves for RLUSD have also thinned faster relative to supply, signaling migration from custodial holdings into utility endpoints. - Institutional treasury settlements and cross-border transfers are increasingly prominent drivers of RLUSD movement, positioning it less as a trading-centric stablecoin and more as a settlement-optimized instrument that can operate alongside USDT’s market-dominant liquidity. What this means - RLUSD’s recent trajectory suggests a maturing stablecoin that leverages exchange distribution, institutional flows and layered-chain rails to build real-world payment utility. The combination of active issuance, selective burns, and cross-chain allocation appears to be strengthening liquidity and settlement throughput without sacrificing peg stability. Sources: Binance; DeFiLlama Disclaimer: AMBCrypto's content is meant to be informational in nature and should not be interpreted as investment advice. Trading, buying or selling cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk investment and every reader is advised to do their own research before making any decisions. © 2026 AMBCrypto Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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