Ripple will soon introduce its stablecoin RLUSD, says Brad Garlinghouse

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Ripple is on the verge of launching its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said during a recent panel discussion at Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul.

The stablecoin is currently being tested on the XRP and Ethereum ledgers and will “definitely launch” in a few weeks, Garlinghouse revealed.

The company announced plans to launch a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar in April this year. It aims to complement XRP tokens by providing a reliable payment solution that can bridge traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi).

RLUSD, fully backed by USD and short-term US government bonds, is also expected to improve payment infrastructure and diversify use cases within the Ripple network.

Ripple’s stablecoin initiative is set to rival Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, the two leading stablecoins in the digital asset market. So far, USDT’s market capitalization has surpassed $118 billion, followed by USDC with about $35 billion, CoinGecko data shows.

However, Ripple sees an opportunity for credible players to carve out space for themselves. The company’s CTO David Schwartz previously said that the stablecoin market could exceed $2 trillion by 2028.

No interest in a US IPO due to legal challenges

Garlinghouse said that Ripple has no interest in advertising Ripple in the US due to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) “pretty hostile” attitude towards crypto.

Coinbase’s experience with the SEC also discouraged the firm from going public in the country.

“(The SEC) approved Coinbase to go public in the United States, and now the SEC is suing Coinbase for the same things they approved,” Garlinghouse said.

However, Garlinghouse remains optimistic about the future of crypto after the upcoming presidential election. He believes crypto will ultimately win regardless of who wins the election.

“I think no matter who wins the election in the United States, we will see new leadership in the US SEC,” he added.

SEC action against OpenSea is “unfortunate”, NFTs are not securities

Commenting on the SEC’s recent legal threat to OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace, Garlinghouse said the case was “really unfortunate.” He argued that NFTs are not securities and that the SEC case is likely to fail.

“Just because someone might speculate on the price of a work of art that it might go up doesn’t make it a guarantee,” the Ripple CEO pointed out.

Despite the current regulatory challenges in the US, Garlinghouse believes that crypto will have a positive future in the next five years as the efforts of elected officials lead to legislative clarity.

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