[Coin Report] Ripple Stablecoin RLUSD Potential in the Spotlight… XRP Retreats Ahead of $3

XRP has attracted the attention of the virtual asset market by launching its own USDT-based stablecoin RLUSD this week. On the 17th when RLUSD was listed on the exchange, the XRP price temporarily surged 16% and approached the $3 level for the first time in about 7 years. However, the virtual asset market has since turned bearish, and the XRP price has retreated back to the early $2 range. As of 4:06 pm on the 20th, based on CoinMarketCap, XRP fell 2.22% from the previous day to $2.31.

RLUSD has been attracting attention in the industry since Ripple first announced its launch plan in April this year. Stablecoins are effectively used as a major trading medium in DeFi services, expanding the blockchain ecosystem. At the time, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed high expectations, saying that "issuing stablecoins can significantly improve the use cases and liquidity of the XRPL."

RLUSD, which received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) 8 months after the announcement of the launch plan, was first listed on 5 trading platforms including Uphold, Bitso, and Moonpay. According to Ripple, it is scheduled to be listed on additional platforms such as Bitrex and Bitstamp in the next few weeks. However, as of the 20th, the 24-hour trading volume of RLUSD is still only about $680,000 (about 900 million won) based on CoinMarketCap. This is very small compared to the trading volume of $229.4 billion (about 332.7 trillion won) of the largest US dollar-based stablecoin Tether (USDT).

However, there are high expectations that the RLUSD market will further expand next year, driven by the US dollar-based stablecoin promotion policy of the incoming Donald Trump administration. President-elect Trump opposes the central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the grounds of privacy protection, and is instead pushing for stablecoins as an alternative to maintain the dollar's hegemony. Since most of the major stablecoin reserve assets are US Treasuries, the expansion of stablecoins is expected to stimulate the purchase of US Treasuries and strengthen the dominance of the dollar. President-elect Trump is also pushing for the issuance of his own stablecoin through the DeFi protocol 'World Liberty Financial' led by his eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and second son Eric.

Kim Gab-rae, a senior research fellow at the Capital Market Research Institute, analyzed that "President-elect Trump is resolving the domestic regulatory uncertainty on virtual assets such as stablecoins, and businesses related to virtual assets that have not been able to do so in the US are now being promoted. Ripple is the clearest example of this situation. By issuing stablecoins through XRPL and using XRP as a fee, the XRPL chain itself is being institutionalized, so the XRP price naturally rises."

The possibility of launching an XRP spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) next year is also being raised. Bloomberg's chief ETF analyst Eric Balchunas predicted the launch of XRP and Solana (SOL) spot ETFs next year through his X account. So far, several asset management companies such as 21Shares, Granitia Capital, and WisdomTree have submitted applications to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for XRP spot ETF products.

As positive news about XRP continues, the response in the domestic market, where XRP investment is high, is also hot. As investors' interest in XRP has surged, the trading volume of XRP on exchanges has soared this month. As of 4:42 pm on the 20th, more than 2 trillion won in XRP trading volume occurred in a single day on Upbit, the largest virtual asset exchange in Korea. This is the largest among all virtual assets listed on Upbit, surpassing the trading volume of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). According to a recent report by Dispread Research, the total XRP trading volume on the top 5 domestic exchanges from November 29 to December 5, when expectations for the RLUSD launch were high, was about 44.4757 trillion won. This is an overwhelming scale that is 4 times higher than the trading volume of Dogecoin (DOGE), which recorded the second highest trading volume of about 11.4776 trillion won during the same period.

However, there is an analysis that the impact of the domestic market on the XRP price increase is limited. Joo Gi-young, CEO of Cryptoquant, said, "There are on-chain indicators that meaningful XRP price premiums have occurred on Coinbase," and "The rise in XRP in early December was led by Coinbase."

Reporter Kim Jung-woo

woo@decenter.kr