Ripple’s Stablecoin Gets a Faint Whisper of Attention — Is This the Big Break? 😉

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TL;DR

  • RLUSD, the coin everyone forgot existed, has received a little more support. It’s still the economic equivalent of a teaspoon on an ocean of stablecoins.
  • And in a move that surprises no one except maybe the tightly wound sock puppet at the corner of the room, Cardano is considering letting RLUSD waltz into its digital garden—because who doesn’t love free stuff? Charles Hoskinson is practically offering to do the integration in his sleep, because apparently XRP fans are so charming they’ve convinced him to do it for free. 🥸

Ripple Logo in the distance, barely noticeable

Adoption on the Rise (or at least pretending to)

The brave at heart at Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange that clearly has a master’s degree in optimism, has just added Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD to its shelves. Now you can trade RLUSD/USDT and RLUSD/USDC—because nothing says stability like trading coins that are trying very hard not to crash. Withdrawals start from tomorrow, so get your digital piggy banks ready!

Meanwhile, Euler Labs, the UK-based DeFi whiz kids with more gadgets than a Bond villain’s lair, have jumped onto the RLUSD bandwagon. They’re allowing folks to borrow, lend, and use RLUSD as collateral, because in crypto, collateral is just a fancy word for “we hope this doesn’t all go up in flames.”

RLUSD is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar—proof that even in the wild world of crypto, someone still remembers what money actually looks like. It made its official debut last December, backed by the usual cast: Bitso, Uphold, Bitstamp, Moonpay, and a few others who are probably just as puzzled by it as everyone else. Kraken and Gemini joined the party earlier this year, looking equally hopeful.

Despite all this hullabaloo, RLUSD remains a tiny drop in the vast, overflowing stablecoin ocean. With a market cap barely nudging $300 million, it’s like a lonely sock lost behind the cushions—sure it’s there, but nobody’s paying much attention. Meanwhile, the titans like USDT with nearly $153 billion, and USDC with about $61 billion, keep doing their thing, probably ignoring RLUSD entirely.

In a plot twist worthy of a soap opera, Ripple is reportedly trying to buy the company behind the second-largest meme coin—because what could possibly go wrong? Rumor has it Ripple’s slightly ahead of Coinbase in the race for Circle, which isn’t selling because apparently they’re planning an IPO. Of course, Circle denied all this with the enthusiasm of a cat hearing a vacuum cleaner.

Cardano’s Plans — Or Daydreams?

Meanwhile, in the theater of the absurd, Cardano is dreaming about adding RLUSD to its ecosystem. Founder Charles Hoskinson—probably the most optimistic man in blockchain—kicked off this romantic comedy by apologizing to the XRP fans for being a bit of a critic in the past. Now he’s apparently having chats with Ripple’s boss, Brad Garlinghouse, about a possible partnership. Because nothing says “trust me, I’m serious” like a secret meeting over coffee that we all get to overhear.

Earlier this year, Hoskinson said that his team even had a call about integrating RLUSD and that Ripple’s marketing department went all out by sharing Cardano’s logo in a video, no doubt causing confusion among viewers and making the entire crypto world roll its eyes. And just a few days ago, Hoskinson doubled down with a quote that sounds like a polite kiss-off: “We would like to find a path to get RLUSD on Cardano… We would do the integration for free because we like the XRP community.” Yeah, sure. Ongoing conversations, or just passing the time before something shiny distracts everyone again?

Official confirmation? Somewhere between “I’ll think about it” and “Definitely not happening,” which is pretty much crypto’s default setting.

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2025-05-29 18:02