Ripple makes Africa expansion push with $700M RLUSD stablecoin

Ripple, the US-based stablecoin issuer and digital payments company, announced in a press release on Wednesday that it is bringing its stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD) to institutions in Africa, in partnership with Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card.

Per the company’s statement, RLUSD will give businesses and institutions in Africa access to stable digital dollars that can be used for cross-border payments, liquidity management, and on-chain settlement. Ripple believes demand for RLUSD has been rising globally, and Africa is a natural next step.

RLUSD, which was launched in late 2024, is issued by a New York trust company regulated by the state’s Department of Financial Services. Data from RWA.xyz shows the token has already grown to over $700 million in supply across Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. 

“RLUSD is suitable for treasury operations, remittances, and as collateral for tokenized assets such as commodities and securities,” the release read.

Company executives speak on the RLUSD market reach

Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, said RLUSD had quickly established itself in enterprise finance. 

“We’re seeing demand for RLUSD from our customers and other institutional players globally and are excited to now begin distribution in Africa through our local partners.” McDonald continued, “We also recently enabled RLUSD in Ripple Payments, extending the breadth of stablecoins available in our cross-border payments solution to better serve our customers worldwide.”

Ham Serunjogi, co-founder and chief executive of Chipper Cash, called RLUSD in Africa “transformative.”  

“After establishing our partnership with Ripple earlier this year to support faster, cheaper, more efficient cross-border payments into Africa, we were keen to make RLUSD available to our clients as soon as possible,” Serunjogi said.

Ripple to continue humanitarian program in Kenya

Ripple also mentioned that the stablecoin is already being used in humanitarian pilot projects. Mercy Corps Ventures, a nonprofit focused on resilience programs, is running two projects in Kenya based on RLUSD. 

As covered by Cryptopolitan in July, the first initiative involved the stablecoin being used as drought insurance for farmers. Funds are held in escrow and automatically released via smart contracts when satellite data confirms drought conditions.

A second pilot project is developing a parametric rainfall insurance product backed by RLUSD. Similar to the drought program, it would release funds when excessive rainfall is detected, giving farmers timely support during extreme weather. 

The three new African partners join a list of global institutions offering RLUSD. The stablecoin is also available through exchanges and platforms such as Bitso, Bitstamp, Bullish, CoinMENA, Independent Reserve, Gemini, Kraken, LMAX, Mercado Bitcoin, and Uphold. 

Stablecoins and taxes

The total stablecoin market valuation has reached $285 billion, according to data from DefiLlama. But to some economists, the growth of stablecoins means companies will pay less taxes. 

Jean Tirole, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at the Toulouse School of Economics, said the stablecoin industry suffers from “insufficient supervision.” Speaking at a gathering of Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany, last week, Tirole said he was concerned governments might face pressure to bail out stablecoin holders in the event of a crisis.

“If it is held by retail or institutional depositors who thought it was a perfectly safe deposit, then the government will be under a lot of pressure to rescue the depositors so they don’t lose their money,” he claimed.

Stablecoins such as those issued by Tether and Circle have grown in popularity as the U.S. government moves to regulate them more clearly. In July, lawmakers passed the GENIUS Act, a law enabling banks to issue their own dollar-backed digital tokens.

Get seen where it counts. Advertise in Cryptopolitan Research and reach crypto’s sharpest investors and builders.