Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD just scored its biggest institutional breakthrough yet. Through a new smart contract built on Securitize’s platform, holders of BlackRock’s (BLK) BUIDL and VanEck’s VBILL funds can now swap their tokenized shares directly for RLUSD.
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The move creates what Ripple calls a “24/7 stablecoin off-ramp” for tokenized treasuries, giving institutional investors a way to redeem into on-chain liquidity instantly instead of waiting for traditional settlement windows.
“This tie-up is a natural next step as we continue to bridge traditional finance and crypto,” said Jack McDonald, Ripple’s SVP of Stablecoins, in a prepared statement. He framed RLUSD as both regulatory-compliant and enterprise-grade, stressing its design for institutional adoption.
RLUSD Is a Regulated Stablecoin with Institutional Reach
RLUSD is issued under a New York DFS trust charter and backed one-to-one with liquid reserves. Since its launch last year, the stablecoin has grown to more than $700 million in circulation, with Ripple pushing its use in cross-border payments, liquidity pools, and now institutional money markets.
Positioning RLUSD inside tokenized products from giants like BlackRock and VanEck elevates its role as a settlement layer for real-world assets (RWA). Investors can now cycle between traditional fixed-income instruments and crypto-native liquidity without friction. This expands the utility of both tokenized funds and stablecoins.
Ripple Aims for a Dual Push with RWA and DeFi
The integration also lays the groundwork for RLUSD’s deployment on the XRP (XRP-USD) Ledger, which would give Ripple a two-pronged strategy. On one side, RLUSD anchors into institutional platforms like BlackRock and VanEck for regulatory-compliant RWA settlement. On the other, Ripple can push RLUSD into DeFi pools and on-chain payments. This could drive more liquidity into its ecosystem.
It is pretty impressive how Ripple’s RLUSD has already become a $700 million stablecoin in less than a year. Now that regulators are onboard and integration into the XRP Ledger is on the horizon, RLUSD is being positioned as a stablecoin that can serve Wall Street and DeFi at the same time.
At the time of writing, XRP is sitting at $2.8776.
