XRP News Today: "Ripple's XRP and RLUSD Stack Challenges SWIFT's Legacy in Global Finance"

Ripple has launched a U.S.-based institutional over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform for XRP and its stablecoin RLUSD, marking a significant step in bridging traditional finance and digital assets. The service, operated under Ripple Prime, allows qualified institutional clients to execute OTC spot trades, cross-margin positions with derivatives, and access deep liquidity pools, mirroring the infrastructure of Wall Street trading desks, a Coinotag report. This development comes as RLUSD, Ripple's regulated USD-pegged stablecoin, surpassed $1 billion in market capitalization across the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, signaling growing institutional confidence in the ecosystem, according to a U.Today report.

The OTC platform integrates XRP and RLUSD with traditional financial tools like swaps and CME futures, enabling institutions to manage crypto risk akin to equities portfolios, Coinotag noted. Ripple Prime, which rebranded the acquired Hidden Road prime brokerage, now handles over $3 trillion in annual transactions and offers cross-margining features that let clients collateralize RLUSD for derivatives trading, according to TheCryptoBasic report. This expansion aligns with Ripple's broader strategy to position XRP and RLUSD as core components of a "financial stack" that competes with legacy systems like SWIFT, leveraging near-instant XRP Ledger settlements and RLUSD's dual-chain interoperability, as explained in a TradingView analysis.

RLUSD's rapid adoption has been fueled by its New York Trust Company charter, ensuring compliance with U.S. regulations, and its deployment on both Ethereum and XRP Ledger, according to a CoinPedia article. The stablecoin's market cap growth—bolstered by a recent 50 million token mint—has outpaced peers like PayPal's PYUSD and First Digital's FDUSD, now ranking among the top five stablecoins by value, the U.Today report added. Institutions are using RLUSD for cross-border payments, DeFi lending, and as a stable on-ramp for tokenized assets, with Ripple President Monica Long emphasizing its role in "redefining global payments" in a WebProNews piece.

Meanwhile, XRP's price has traded between $2.30 and $2.68 in October, with analysts linking its volatility to anticipation of ETF approvals and institutional liquidity strategies, per a BeInCrypto analysis. Ripple's monthly XRP escrow releases—unlocking 1 billion tokens while relocking 70–80%—have drawn scrutiny over market cap calculations, though experts argue the mechanism prevents sudden supply shocks, the same BeInCrypto piece noted. Institutional demand for XRP has surged, with corporate treasuries and ETF vehicles accumulating over $115 million in exposure, echoing its 2017 bull market dynamics, according to a TradingView report.

Regulatory clarity has further bolstered Ripple's institutional push. Following a favorable legal resolution with the SEC, XRP and RLUSD now operate under a compliant framework, attracting auditors like Withum and expanding into markets like Africa for climate-related stablecoin pilots, according to a Bitcoin.com post. Analysts at Messari note that XRP's $170 billion market cap and RLUSD's $1 billion milestone position Ripple as a leader in regulated blockchain infrastructure, with projections of $2 trillion in stablecoin adoption by 2028, the post added.

Critics, however, question whether RLUSD's dominance on Ethereum sidelines the XRP Ledger, though proponents highlight atomic swaps and dual-chain utility as strengths, as covered by WebProNews. As Ripple Prime expands, the company aims to integrate XRP with corporate treasury systems via GTreasury and Standard Custody acquisitions, targeting Fortune 500 clients and $10 trillion in crypto custody assets by 2030, The Crypto Basic reported.

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