RLUSD circulation hits record high even as XRP underperforms

What's new? Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD set another record for circulating supply this week, with the total reaching $2.442 billion. That fresh peak extends a steady climb through 2026: the figure was roughly $1.7 billion in mid-August, crossed $2 billion by late August and stood at $2.32 billion by early September, keeping monthly growth in the 15 to 20 percent range. By native supply, the XRP Ledger is now cited as the 11th largest stablecoin chain in the industry.

Why this matters: RLUSD's expansion is happening while XRP itself has struggled. XRP is down roughly 27 percent year to date, even as RLUSD's market cap has multiplied more than tenfold over the same stretch. That disconnect points toward institutions using RLUSD as settlement and treasury infrastructure that does not depend on XRP's price. A growing stablecoin supply suggests more liquidity and real-world usage on a network, but it runs on a different track than demand for the native token, so the two should not be treated as moving together.

What's worth watching? Spot XRP ETFs are said to have attracted large amounts of capital this week, though daily flows have been in the low single-digit millions in recent sessions, and cumulative inflows since launch are approaching $1 billion over a longer window. The sharper reading is that demand for XRP ETFs has been steady rather than surging, while RLUSD's supply growth has been the stronger, more consistent trend of the two.

What could shift the picture? Were daily XRP ETF inflows to strengthen consistently, rather than in a single large burst, that would back the idea of institutional demand accelerating together with RLUSD's growth. Without that, the better way to characterise it is that RLUSD adoption is diverging from XRP price and ETF demand, a separation that may be more important for institutional crypto infrastructure than XRP's price performance.

Where to look next: Watch whether RLUSD keeps up its recent monthly pace of supply growth and whether XRP ETF inflows move from steady to accelerating. The practical takeaway is that RLUSD's rise is a genuine and verifiable adoption story, but it is not a proxy for XRP demand or price strength unless the ETF flow data starts to show that connection.

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Traders can now buy and sell XRP ETFs in the US, as these products are live. Several of them went live 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 holds the most liquidity?

Among the five spot XRP ETFs, Bitwise's fund (ticker: XRP) leads by a wide margin on both trading volume and size, with daily volume around $22 to 28 million and about $520 million in assets under management, both comfortably the largest of the group.

On both measures, Franklin Templeton's XRPZ is a distant second, with daily volume in the $7 to 8 million range and about $388 million in assets. It also has the lowest expense ratio of the group at 0.19 percent versus Bitwise's 0.34 percent.

Canary Capital, Grayscale and REX-Osprey trail far behind on both volume and assets, with REX-Osprey the thinnest of the five. For traders focused on easy entry and exit, Bitwise's depth of volume is the practical pick; those who value cost over liquidity may prefer Franklin Templeton's lower fee for longer holding periods.

XRP's price action around mid-August tells a clear story.

On August 14, the token fell to a yearly low of $0.98, then reversed sharply beginning around August 19, with the price action showing a long lower wick followed by a forceful green candle. From there, XRP surged roughly 56 percent in a single week, its strongest weekly move since the post-SEC-settlement rally in August 2025.

Several drivers came together at once to produce that move. Short positioning in XRP perpetuals was at its highest since April, and once buying pressure took hold, heavy short liquidations magnified the rally. Bitcoin's breakout above $77,000 lifted crypto broadly, carrying XRP higher with it. Spot XRP ETFs took in a record $110.49 million in inflows over the week, taking cumulative inflows past $1.66 billion since the funds launched. Some reporting has also linked the US Treasury's expansion of long-term bond buybacks to a wider risk-on move across crypto that week. Supporting the move were fundamentals like the Hidden Road integration going live and RLUSD's traction as a settlement layer, giving the rally more weight than a purely leverage-driven squeeze.