Ripple's RLUSD Grew 88% This Year While XRP Fell 29%. Is the Stablecoin Replacing XRP? - 24/7 Wall St.

The divergence is notable but not necessarily a signal of substitution. RLUSD and XRP serve different functions within Ripple's ecosystem: RLUSD is a dollar-pegged stablecoin designed for payments and settlement with minimal price volatility, while XRP is a volatile bridge asset used for liquidity and cross-border value transfer. An 88% expansion in RLUSD's supply reflects growing adoption of stablecoin rails for settlement, a trend visible across the broader market rather than unique to Ripple. XRP's 29% decline, meanwhile, tracks the token's price exposure to market sentiment and liquidity conditions.

What to watch is whether RLUSD's growth translates into sustained on-chain payment volume rather than idle issuance, and whether demand for XRP as a bridge asset holds up as stablecoin settlement expands. If stablecoins increasingly absorb payment flows, that could reshape how value moves through Ripple's network, but the two assets can also grow alongside each other if overall settlement activity rises. The headline's framing poses a question the data alone cannot answer; supply growth and price performance measure different things.