Ripple stablecoin RLUSD liquidity tops $1.5 billion…US CBDC adoption talks hit a roadblock

Liquidity for Ripple-issued stablecoin RLUSD is increasing rapidly.

According to Cryptopolitan, a cryptocurrency-focused outlet, RLUSD liquidity has expanded from about $235 million last year to roughly $1.52 billion at present. The figures were disclosed via a Messari report.

RLUSD is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, backed by dollar deposits, short-term US Treasuries and cash-equivalent assets. Ripple designed the stablecoin as a settlement asset for institutional payments and global remittances.

Issuance has also been rising quickly. The RLUSD Treasury minted about 69 million RLUSD on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) last week, the largest single issuance to date.

Ripple is also moving to scale its infrastructure. It plans to add security and staking features to Ripple Custody in cooperation with security infrastructure firm Securosys and staking infrastructure firm Figment. Ripple Payments, meanwhile, currently supports receiving, custodying, exchanging and paying out in fiat currencies and stablecoins across more than 60 markets.

Panos Mekras, co-founder of Anodos Finance, said, "Billions of dollars' worth of XRP remains unused, and RLUSD liquidity is also growing rapidly," adding that "the XRP Ledger still has significant untapped economic potential."

In the US, political controversy over adopting a CBDC continues. The US Senate is pushing a sweeping housing-related bill that includes provisions to restrict the issuance of a central bank digital currency.

Some in the market also interpret the expansion in RLUSD liquidity as a possible signal of growth in the XRP Ledger-based decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.