Most of Ripple's RLUSD Stablecoin Now Circulates on Ethereum

Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple's chief executive, has expressed a desire for the firm's RLUSD stablecoin—valued at $2.6 billion in market cap—to operate on the XRP Ledger. Yet on-chain data from DefiLlama indicates that approximately two-thirds of that supply resides on Ethereum.

Garlinghouse shared his views on social media platform X. In response to a user who praised RLUSD as beneficial for XRP, the Ripple CEO distinguished between the two tokens:

Agreed!

RLUSD isn’t competing with XRP. It’s competing with other stablecoins. Use case matters, and I want those use cases running on the XRPL.

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) November 3, 2026

Garlinghouse additionally commended a post by an XRP Ledger developer that contrasted RLUSD and XRP.

According to the developer, Ripple controls the issuance of RLUSD and has the ability to freeze those tokens. In contrast, no entity can freeze XRP.

Furthermore, each account on the XRP Ledger must hold an XRP reserve, and transaction fees are paid exclusively in XRP.

Well said, Vet. Complementary, not competitive.

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) November 3, 2026

A few days prior, during the Swell 2026 conference, Garlinghouse described RLUSD and XRP as "very complementary."

During the same event, the Ripple CEO denied speculation that the company was abandoning XRP in favor of its stablecoin.

RLUSD Supply Increasingly Concentrated on Ethereum

Blockchain data reveals the actual distribution of RLUSD. Out of approximately $2.57 billion in circulation, around $1.72 billion is on Ethereum. The XRP Ledger accounts for about $850 million, which is roughly one-third of the total.

The disparity has grown over the last 30 days. Supply on Ethereum increased by about one-third, while the XRP Ledger's share declined by a similar amount.

This represents a shift from earlier in the year. In late June, the XRP Ledger surpassed Ethereum as the primary network for RLUSD, but Ethereum regained the top spot in late August.

Ripple has not provided a reason for the change. Ethereum, however, has a more extensive DeFi ecosystem, with protocols such as Aave for lending. By comparison, the XRP Ledger continues to lack built-in lending capabilities. Additionally, Ethereum hosted the majority of RLUSD supply from the outset.

The total supply of RLUSD continues to expand. According to Ripple, the stablecoin's market capitalization has increased by over 88% so far this year.

Ripple's newly obtained national trust bank charter also applies to the reserves backing RLUSD. However, for the time being, the majority of the stablecoin's growth is occurring away from Ripple's own ledger.