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- Less than a year since launch, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin has already reached Africa through partnerships such as Mercy Corps Ventures in Kenya.
- The stablecoin has facilitated its own adoption with seamless, efficient transitions and regulatory alignment.
Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, has quickly become one of the most talked-about digital assets in the market. Issued by a New York trust company and fully regulated by the NYDFS, RLUSD launched in late 2024 and already boasts more than $700 million in circulation across Ethereum and the XRP Ledger.
Unlike meme-driven tokens, RLUSD was built with business in mind. It’s designed to power fast cross-border payments, help with liquidity management, slot into DeFi integrations, and even serve as collateral for tokenized real-world assets.
The company recently highlighted how African fintechs are adopting RLUSD through new partnerships with Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card. These deals open the door for broader use of the stablecoin in cross-border payments, treasury systems, and business finance across one of the fastest-growing fintech regions in the world.
RLUSD’s African Network
Chipper Cash is a cross-border payments application that has over 5 million users in nine African countries. The platform leverages RLUSD to improve Africa’s remittance and payments space. “RLUSD is uniquely poised to drive institutional blockchain adoption across Africa,” said CEO Ham Serunjogi.
As one of the continent’s largest crypto exchanges, VALR, now supports RLUSD trading. That means both everyday users and large institutions can now trade a fully regulated digital dollar on the platform. To celebrate, VALR is running an RLUSD & XRP Spot Trading Competition from September 1 to September 30, giving the community a chance to get involved right away.
VALR’s co-founder and CEO, Farzam Ehsani, explained the move:
Listing RLUSD reflects our broader strategy to back trusted stablecoins that meet the needs of both institutional and retail clients looking for a reliable digital dollar with real-world use cases.
The next partnership is with a payment infrastructure. Think of Yellow Card as a bridge between local African currencies and crypto that has strong compliance and simplicity built into it. It was launched in 2016 and began operating in Nigeria in 2019. This fintech trailblazer now spans 20 African countries, offering a smooth on-ramp to RLUSD. Other tokens that are supported are like Tether (USDT) and USDC, as well as Bitcoin (BTC) and others.
Back in July, Crypto News Flash also reported about Ripple’s team-up with Mercy Corps Ventures and DIVA Donate on a project in Kenya that uses blockchain to deliver climate-resilient aid in an entirely new way. They deployed RLUSD, combined with satellite data and smart contracts, to provide anticipatory drought insurance for pastoral communities in Laikipia County.
The pilot insured 517 pastoralists, of which 70% were women, bringing targeted support to one of the continent’s most climate-vulnerable groups.
The numbers speak for themselves. According to CoinMarketCap, RLUSD now sits comfortably in the top 100 tokens with a market capitalization of around $709 million. On the XRP Ledger alone, it closed Q2 at $65.9 million in market cap, a massive 154% jump from the previous quarter, making it the largest stablecoin on XRPL.
Part of this success comes down to the U.S. regulatory environment shifting in 2025 with the passage of the GENIUS Act, which set clear rules for stablecoins. That clarity gave RLUSD the runway it needed to scale quickly and win institutional trust.
