San Francisco-based Ripple, a digital asset infrastructure provider to financial institutions, began being available on global exchanges on Monday as Ripple USD (RLUSD).
RLUSD is stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to another currency, commodity, or financial instrument. RLUSD is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. government bonds, and cash equivalents. An independent auditing firm will conduct third-party attestations of RLUSD’s reserve assets that Ripple will publish monthly.
RLUSD is available on Archax, Bitso, CoinMENA, MoonPay, and Uphold. Listings are expected in the near future on Bitstamp, Bullish, Independent Reserve, Mercado Bitcoin, Zero Hash and other platforms.
“Early on, Ripple made a deliberate choice to launch our stablecoin under the NYDFS (New York State Department of Financial Services) limited purpose trust company charter, widely regarded as the premier regulatory standard worldwide,” Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, said. “As the U.S. moves toward clearer regulations, we expect to see greater adoption of stablecoins like RLUSD, which offer real utility and are backed by years of trust and expertise in the industry.”
Ripple Payments will use RLUSD to facilitate global payments on behalf of enterprise customers beginning early next year.
Ripple Payments is active in more than 90 payout markets that represent more than 90 percent of the daily foreign exchange market.