Ripple Mints $38.6M, Burns $50.6M — Net Result: RLUSD Takes a $12M Supply Diet

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin saw back-to-back treasury activity this week as the company minted $38.6 million worth of tokens on Ethereum and burned $50.6 million on the XRP Ledger, leaving circulating supply lower by a net $12 million, according to on-chain data from the Ripple Stablecoin Tracker. The mint was split across two Ethereum transactions — one for 19.6 million tokens and another for 19 million — while the burns were executed through three separate XRP Ledger transactions. Treasury mints typically follow verified customer USD deposits and reflect newly demanded stablecoin liquidity rather than free supply inflation, with the cross-chain rebalancing indicating a liquidity shift toward Ethereum to serve decentralized finance and institutional demand.

The activity coincides with the launch of bank-grade RLUSD custody by Standard Chartered through its Dubai International Financial Centre branch on October 12. Standard Chartered also confirmed an upcoming collateral integration with LMAX, a London-based institutional exchange, as part of its broader push into digital asset services for institutional clients. The custody rollout extends the bank's existing crypto infrastructure, which already includes spot crypto trading for Bitcoin and Ether through its venture with Zodia Markets.

RLUSD, which launched in late 2024, is positioned by Ripple as an enterprise-grade stablecoin designed for cross-border payments and tokenized real-world assets. The token operates across both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, with Ripple using its own infrastructure and BitGo as a custodian to support reserve management and regulatory compliance. The recent mints and burns extend the supply contraction that has characterized RLUSD's first year in circulation, with the asset's circulating market capitalization most recently reported near $727 million.

Standard Chartered's move into RLUSD custody adds a tier-one global bank to the stablecoin's distribution network and follows similar institutional entries into the tokenized dollar market by firms including JPMorgan with its JPMD deposit token and Bank of America with discussions around a potential dollar stablecoin of its own. The LMAX integration will allow Standard Chartered custody clients to post RLUSD as collateral at the exchange, expanding the token's utility beyond payments into institutional margin and trading workflows. No launch date for the LMAX integration was disclosed.