Overview
- Brad Garlinghouse said major banks are debating issuing their own dollar tokens, signaling a near-term wave of experiments that could crowd the stablecoin market.
- Explaining Ripple’s move, he said the firm had already powered large stablecoin flows and claimed it minted about 20% of USDC two years ago before launching its own coin, RLUSD, in late 2024.
- Garlinghouse cast RLUSD as a reserve-backed, audit-focused token and cited Ripple’s reported holdings of tens of billions in crypto and about $4 billion in cash as support for institutional trust.
- He pointed to USDC’s brief slip from its $1 peg during the Silicon Valley Bank crisis to argue that strong balance sheets and clear disclosures matter more to treasurers than branding or hype.
- Ripple says RLUSD sits inside its payments stack alongside XRP, which it uses for liquidity and near‑real‑time settlement, and it is pursuing New York and OCC licenses as U.S. policy efforts like the CLARITY Act advance.