Global second-largest stablecoin USDC (USD Coin) has been officially integrated into Ripple's public blockchain XRP Ledger (XRPL). This enables the issuance and trading of USDC on XRPL, and Ripple's ecosystem has secured new real-time liquidity based on stablecoins.
This integration was announced on the 12th (local time) and marks a historic turning point where USDC, with a market capitalization of approximately 61 trillion won (45 billion dollars), is natively supported on a Ripple-based network for the first time. Developers and institutional investors can now directly use USDC on XRPL to build various financial services such as payments, remittances, and asset management.
USDC is a digital dollar issued by the US fintech company Circle, with 1 USDC backed by 1 dollar in physical assets, ensuring high stability. Currently used in over 22 blockchains including Ethereum and Solana, XRPL has now been added to its official support list.
Circle stated, "XRPL is an infrastructure that is fast, low-cost, and suitable for developing financial-centric applications," and "With USDC's native integration, global companies and institutions can more easily adopt real-time payment solutions on XRPL."
XRPL is a high-performance public blockchain operating since 2012, capable of processing thousands of transactions per second. While liquidity has mainly centered on XRP and custom tokens, the addition of USDC is expected to significantly improve overall ecosystem liquidity and trading stability.
Particularly, synergy with Ripple's upcoming stablecoin RLUSD is generating expectations. RLUSD is a dollar-based stablecoin to be directly issued by Ripple, primarily intended for DeFi and enterprise payment solutions. The coexistence of these two stablecoins is expected to simultaneously promote competition and collaboration within the XRPL ecosystem.
Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis noted, "This integration goes beyond a simple technical connection and will serve as a foundation for transforming Ripple into a global digital financial hub," and predicted that "connections with central bank digital currencies (CBDC), enterprise stablecoins, and physical asset tokenization could rapidly expand."
Certain ripple effects are also expected in traditional financial markets. As blockchain-based payment systems provide faster and cheaper infrastructure compared to SWIFT, analyses suggest it could emerge as a new alternative in inter-corporate payments, trade finance, and global liquidity supply structures.
This USDC integration into XRPL symbolically demonstrates Ripple's leap from a simple remittance network to a true global financial infrastructure.
