RLUSD Inside Cross River Bank: Does It Create Demand for XRP?
Cross River Bank added Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. Here is where that money touches XRP: fees, reserves, AMM pools and auto-bridging.
Key takeaways
- Cross River Bank built Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin into its payment system on October 15. According to the video, it has not named any customers or said how much money moves through it.
- Per the video, creating RLUSD never requires XRP: firms send Ripple dollars, and Ripple keeps the interest on the reserves.
- The video argues that RLUSD touches XRP today only through tiny burned fees, account reserves and one AMM pool, and that all three are small next to XRP's market value.
- According to the video, the main way stablecoin growth could create real XRP demand is auto-bridging, where currency swaps route through XRP when that is cheaper.
- In a clip shown in the video, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said a stablecoin might turn out to be a better bridge than XRP, so XRP's role gets decided payment by payment.
Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is now built into the core payment system of Cross River, a regulated US bank in New Jersey. According to the video’s analysis, this adoption mostly benefits the XRP Ledger and Ripple the company, and so far it creates very little direct demand for XRP itself. The one possible exception is a process called auto-bridging.
This matters because XRP holders have waited years for exactly this kind of headline. According to the video, RLUSD’s supply has nearly doubled since January, while XRP lost almost a third of its price over the same months. Knowing where bank money touches XRP, and where it does not, helps holders read the next partnership announcement more clearly.
What did Cross River Bank announce?
On October 15, Cross River Bank made Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin part of the system it uses to run its payments. Many fintech apps route their payments through Cross River. Through a single connection, a business can now send money by ACH, wire, instant payment or as RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. It can also switch between dollars and RLUSD whenever it wants.
Per the video, the RLUSD side settles in 3 to 5 seconds, costs a fraction of a cent and runs through weekends and holidays. The video’s example is a company paying an overseas supplier late on a Friday. A normal wire could sit until banks reopen, while the RLUSD payment lands in seconds. Adam Goller, Cross River’s head of fintech banking, put it this way: “Businesses shouldn’t have to rely on several different providers to move money across the globe.”
There are limits. The service is only open in some states for now. The video also notes that Cross River has not named a customer or said how much money is moving through it.
The video also points to a second bank. Standard Chartered now holds RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for large clients through its Dubai branch. It is working on letting those clients use RLUSD as collateral for trades, but that part has not launched yet.
How much RLUSD is actually on the XRP Ledger?
Less than half of RLUSD lives on the XRP Ledger. According to the video, at the time of recording, about $1.4 billion of the roughly $2.43 billion in RLUSD sat on Ethereum. About $1.03 billion, roughly 42%, sat on the XRP Ledger. The video said this split had moved back and forth and would likely shift again.
Update (after recording): The split has since moved further toward Ethereum. Parameter reported that Ripple burned about $50.6 million of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger while minting about $38.6 million on Ethereum. In the same report, the total value of stablecoins on the XRP Ledger fell 13.19% over a week to about $999.9 million, mainly because RLUSD on the ledger dropped 14.39%. That leaves roughly $907 million of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger.
The video says that when a bank like Cross River picks the XRP Ledger, it pulls more of Ripple’s dollars onto the network, which is a real win for the ledger. Whether it is a win for XRP holders is a separate question. For background on how the two assets differ, see what RLUSD is and how it differs from XRP.
Does creating RLUSD require XRP?
According to the video, no. The video describes the process this way: to get new RLUSD, a firm sends Ripple dollars, and Ripple creates the same amount of RLUSD. No XRP is bought along the way. The video also says the interest earned on the reserve dollars backing RLUSD goes to Ripple, the company. In the video’s account, XRP only comes into the picture once RLUSD starts moving on the ledger.
Where does RLUSD touch XRP today?
RLUSD touches XRP in three ways right now: transaction fees, account reserves and a liquidity pool. The video argues all three are small.
Fees. Every transaction on the XRP Ledger costs a tiny fee paid in XRP, and that fee is destroyed. This applies whether the transaction moves XRP, RLUSD or any other token. The video cites one day when nearly $50 billion moved across the ledger and about 511 XRP, roughly $664, was burned in fees for all of it. The video says most of that activity was exchanges and big holders moving their own coins, so it does not show buying. It does show the scale. By the video’s math, even billions of dollars a day from Cross River would burn very little XRP. Bullrunners has explained how the XRP fee burn works in more detail.
Reserves. Every XRP Ledger account must keep 1 XRP parked, plus another 0.2 XRP for each token it holds, such as RLUSD. The video estimates that a million new accounts would lock up about 1.2 million XRP, around $1.5 million worth. The video puts XRP’s total value at more than $80 billion. The trust line reserve explainer covers how that 0.2 XRP works.
AMM pool. An automated market maker (AMM) pool is a shared pile of two coins that anyone can trade against. According to the video, the main RLUSD/XRP pool holds about 1.86 million XRP, around $2.4 million. The video said that for every $400 or so of RLUSD on the ledger, about $1 sat next to XRP in that pool. That ratio was based on the roughly $1.03 billion figure at recording. It will have changed since RLUSD on the ledger fell.
| Touchpoint | How it involves XRP | Scale cited in the video |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction fees | Small XRP fee burned on every transaction | About 511 XRP (~$664) on a ~$50 billion day |
| Account reserves | 1 XRP per account plus 0.2 XRP per token held | ~1.2 million XRP per million new accounts |
| RLUSD/XRP AMM pool | XRP sits alongside RLUSD for swaps | About 1.86 million XRP (~$2.4 million) |
| Auto-bridging | XRP used mid-swap between currencies | Could scale with payment volume, per the video |
Who is actually buying XRP right now?
According to the video, funds and treasury companies are doing the real buying, not the stablecoin. Evernorth, a company built to hold XRP the way Strategy holds Bitcoin, now trades on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN. It holds about 473 million XRP. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse attended the listing bell and talked about future leverage and yield opportunities. The video notes he named no product or date, so for now it is only a promise.
Per the video, the XRP ETFs together hold about 1.19 billion XRP. In the week to October 16, these funds saw net outflows of about $1.84 million. That was small, but it ended a streak of 13 straight weeks of inflows.
Combined, Evernorth and the ETFs hold about 1.66 billion XRP. The video says that is close to 900 times more XRP than sits in the main RLUSD pool.
The price backdrop is weak. At recording, XRP was around $1.30, close to two-thirds below its all-time high of $3.65. The video says about 80 million more XRP moved into exchange wallets over the prior week. It adds that coins often move to exchanges before they are sold.
What is auto-bridging, and why could it matter?
Auto-bridging is the one place where RLUSD growth could create real XRP demand, according to the video. Say a business holding RLUSD needs yen to pay someone in Japan. There may be no one on the ledger offering a good direct RLUSD-to-yen swap. The XRP Ledger can instead route the trade in two steps: RLUSD into XRP, then XRP into yen. It only takes that route when it is cheaper.
The video argues that if auto-bridging became the normal way stablecoins change currencies, the firms doing those swaps would need to keep XRP on hand. That demand would grow with payment volume. The video cites a CryptoSlate estimate on the scale. If $1 trillion a year in payments used XRP as a bridge, the firms handling them would need close to 1 billion XRP ready at any moment. That is almost as much as all the XRP ETFs hold together. The main RLUSD pool holds under 2 million.
This is a scenario, not a forecast. Ripple’s own payments business already lets companies settle in RLUSD, USDC, USDT or plain dollars. In a clip shown in the video, Garlinghouse said that XRP could be the best bridge asset for that purpose, or a stablecoin could solve that problem better. According to the video, he also said at the Evernorth bell that Ripple believes in a multi-chain world. The video’s point is that XRP’s role is decided again with every payment, by whatever is cheapest for the business sending the money.
How to check whether a headline reaches your XRP
The following five-step test is Bullrunners’ summary of the video’s walkthrough. You can apply it to any Ripple or bank announcement:
- Minting: Does creating the product require buying XRP? For RLUSD, the video says no.
- Fees: How much XRP is burned? Compare it to the payment value. Usually tiny.
- Reserves: How many new accounts would this add? Each locks about 1 to 1.2 XRP.
- Liquidity: Does XRP need to sit in pools to support swaps? Check pool sizes.
- Bridging: Is XRP used mid-route when currencies change? Fees and pool liquidity also rise with volume. The video sees bridging as the route where XRP demand could grow the most.
This lines up with a broader theme Bullrunners has covered on why XRP holders aren’t paid by Ripple’s wins.
What to watch next
The key figure, per the video, is how much stablecoin money changes currencies on the XRP Ledger, and how much of that passes through XRP to get there. Other things worth tracking:
- Whether Cross River names customers or discloses volumes.
- Whether Standard Chartered launches RLUSD as trade collateral.
- The share of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger versus Ethereum, which has moved toward Ethereum since the video was recorded.
- Whether XRP ETF flows return to inflows after the October 16 week.
- Whether the leverage and yield opportunities Garlinghouse mentioned at the Evernorth listing become a named product with a date.
Frequently asked questions
What did Cross River Bank do with RLUSD?
On October 15, New Jersey-based Cross River made Ripple's RLUSD part of its core payment system. Through one connection, businesses can send ACH, wire or instant payments, or send RLUSD on the XRP Ledger, and they can switch between dollars and RLUSD. The service is only available in some states so far.
Does RLUSD growth increase demand for XRP?
Not much so far, according to the video. The video says minting RLUSD needs no XRP, and the links that exist today, such as burned transaction fees, account reserves and one RLUSD/XRP pool, involve small amounts. It names auto-bridging as the one route that could grow with payment volume.
How much RLUSD is on the XRP Ledger?
When the video was recorded, about $1.03 billion of roughly $2.43 billion in RLUSD sat on the XRP Ledger, about 42%. Since then, Parameter reported that Ripple burned about $50.6 million of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger and minted about $38.6 million on Ethereum. That leaves roughly $907 million of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger.
What is auto-bridging on the XRP Ledger?
Auto-bridging is when the XRP Ledger completes a swap in two steps through XRP, for example RLUSD to XRP and then XRP to yen. The ledger only takes that route when it is cheaper than a direct swap.
How much XRP is burned in fees on the XRP Ledger?
The video cites one day when nearly $50 billion moved across the ledger and about 511 XRP, roughly $664, was destroyed in fees. The video says most of that activity was exchanges and large holders moving their own coins.
Full video transcript
From the video's captions, lightly formatted. Captions can mishear names and numbers, so check figures against the article above.
Ripple's own stable coin is now built into the system a regulated American bank runs on. For years, that's exactly the kind of headline that XRP holders were told to [music] wait for. And XRP is lower now than on the day it came out. That coin is RLUSD, Ripple's stable coin built to always be worth exactly $1. And since January, it's nearly doubled.
Over the same months, XRP lost almost a third of its price. Ripple's dollar keeps growing in market cap, and the coin most of you actually own keeps going the other way. And Ripple's CEO has already answered the question a lot of XRP holders are scared to ask him. What happens if a stablecoin turns out to do XRP's [music] job better? So, before you count XRP out, we followed the money from the bank down to the ledger to see exactly
[music]
where it touches XRP. And there's one place it really could. So, let's run it. All right, bull runners. Welcome back to the channel.
Cross River is a New Jersey bank that a lot of fintech apps run their payments through. On October 15th, it made Ripple's stablecoin part of the system it runs everything on. Now, for a business using it, this changes a lot. Through one connection, it can send money by ACH, by wire, by instant payment, or as RLUSD on the XRP ledger. And it can switch between dollars and RLUSD whenever it wants.
The RLUSD side settles in 3 to 5 seconds for a fraction of a cent, and it doesn't stop for weekends or holidays. So, if it can do that, what's the point of XRP? Well, picture a company paying a supplier overseas late on a Friday with a normal wire. That money can sit until the banks open again. On this rail, it lands in seconds.
The payment networks get a new way to settle up with each other during the day, instead of waiting for the end of it. And Cross River's head of fintech banking, Adam Goller, put it simply, "Businesses shouldn't have to rely on several different providers to move money across the globe." What's new here is Ripple's coin running on the XRP ledger inside the same system as everything else. For now, it's only open in some states, and Cross River hasn't named a single customer or said how much money is going through it, but it wasn't the only bank to pick RLUSD in the last few days. Standard Chartered, one of the world's biggest banks, now holds RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for its large clients through its branch in Dubai. It's also working on letting those clients use RLUSD as collateral for trades, though that part hasn't launched yet.
Two banks in a matter of days, and both of them went with the XRP Ledger, which makes the next number a surprise because most of Ripple's dollar coin doesn't even live there. Out of about 2.43 billion dollars of RLUSD, 1.4 billion sits on Ethereum. Only 1.03 billion is on the XRP Ledger, about 42% of it. Honestly, this one surprised me. Ripple built its own stablecoin, and more of it lives on a rival network than on Ripple's own ledger.
Now, this has gone back and forth, so this is likely going to shift by the time you watch this video, but when a bank like CrossRiver picks the XRP Ledger, that's a real win for the network because it pulls more of Ripple's dollars over to it. Whether it's a win for your coins is a separate question that we're going to address. So, we checked every step where the money could touch XRP, and the first step is where every RLUSD comes from. To get new RLUSD, a firm sends Ripple dollars, and Ripple creates the same amount of RLUSD for it. Nobody has to buy a single XRP along the way, and the interest on all those reserve dollars goes to Ripple, the company.
So, making RLUSD never needs XRP. Moving it is where XRP comes in. And it starts with a fee so small most people never notice it. Every time anything moves on the XRP Ledger, whether it's XRP, RLUSD, or anything else, the sender pays a tiny fee in XRP, and that fee gets destroyed. So, there's a little less XRP in the world after every single transaction.
It's the most direct way a stablecoin payment touches the coin you hold. And this is how small it is. On one day, nearly 50 billion dollars moved across the XRP Ledger, the XRP destroyed in fees for all of it? Only about 511 coins, roughly $664. So, $50 was moved and the whole fee bill was less than the price of a new phone.
Most of that was exchanges and big holders moving their own coins around. So, it doesn't mean anyone was buying, but it shows you the math there. Even if Cross River pushes billions of dollars through the ledger every day, the XRP it burns would barely even register. And that's what's so frustrating here. XRP holders have been waiting for all of these Ripple partnerships to cause the adoption to drive demand for XRP.
Now, a bank is adopting the ledger and the part that reaches XRP is just a rounding error there in the amount that it burns. But, the other two places are all USD touches XRP, they're even smaller. Every account on the XRP ledger has to keep one XRP parked in it. Plus another 0.2 XRP to hold a token like RLUSD. Even a million new accounts would lock up about 1.2 million XRP, around $1.5 million worth of it, in a coin worth more than $80 billion.
And then there's a pool where people swap RLUSD for XRP. People put in both coins and anyone who wants to swap trades against that pile. So, the more RLUSD people want to trade for XRP, the more XRP has to sit in pools like this. The main one holds about 1.86 million XRP, around $2.4 million worth, and for every $400 or so of RLUSD on the ledger, about $1 sits next to XRP in that pool. So, if Ripple's stablecoin isn't pulling XRP in, who's buying the coin itself?
Well, Evernode is a company built to hold XRP the way that strategy holds Bitcoin and it's now trading on the Nasdaq under XRPN. With about 473 million XRP on its books, that's someone owning the coin itself. And Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was there for the bell and promised some interesting leverage and yield opportunities. Now, he didn't name a product or a date, so for now, it's just a promise. Then there are the XRP ETFs, the funds you can buy in a normal brokerage account.
Between them, they hold about 1.19 billion XRP. But in the week to October 16th, more money went out than came in. For the first time after 13 straight weeks of inflows, only about 1.84 million dollars left. So it's small, but the streak is over. And the price hasn't helped recently.
At the time I'm recording this, XRP is around a dollar and 30 cents, near 2/3 below its all-time high of $3.65. Over the last week, about 80 million more XRP landed in exchange wallets, and coins usually go to an exchange when somebody's getting ready to sell. Now, put the buyers next to each other. Evernorth in the ETFs hold about 1.66 billion XRP between them. That's close to 900 times more XRP than Ripple's stablecoin has pulled into its main pool.
So right now, the real buying comes from funds and treasury companies, and the stablecoin barely shows up next to them. So here's the one place I mentioned at the start of this video where all USD could really need XRP, and it's the job that Ripple could use XRP for in the first place. Say a business holding all USD needs yen to pay someone in Japan. There might not be anyone on the ledger swapping all USD straight into yen at a good price. So the ledger can do it in two steps.
All USD into XRP, and then XRP into the yen. And it only takes that route when it's cheaper. That's called auto bridging. If that becomes the normal way that stablecoins change currencies, the firms doing those swaps have to keep XRP on hand. And that's demand that grows with every dollar moving through banks like Cross River.
It's the one place this whole story could really reach the XRP that you hold. And the size of it is what matters here. Crypto Slate worked it out. If 1 trillion dollars a year of payments ran through XRP as a bridge, the firms handling them would need close to a billion XRP ready at any moment. That's almost as much as all the XRP ETFs hold put together.
The stablecoin pool we just looked at holds less than 2 million. That's the main version of the story where the bank news and your coin moves together. So, if you want to know where this is starting, that's the thing to watch. How much stablecoin money changes currencies on the ledger and how much of it goes through XRP to get there. But, here's the problem.
Ripple's own payments business already lets companies settle in RLUSD and other stablecoins like USDC and USDT or in plain dollars, whatever suits them. And Garlinghouse has been asked about exactly this job. He's been making the same point for a while, and it's a surprising thing to hear from Ripple's own CEO.
Well, it could be that XRP is the best bridge asset for that purpose, or it could be that no, a stablecoin is going to solve that problem better.
He said the same thing at Evernode Bell in fewer words, "We do believe in a multi-chain world. So, the decision about XRP gets made again with every single payment by whatever is cheapest for the business sending money. And that business doesn't care what's in your wallet." So, is RLUSD helping XRP? Well, it's helping the XRP ledger, it's helping Ripple the company. For your coins, what reaches them so far is a few hundred dollars of fees a day in one small pool.
The upside is real, and it rests on one thing. XRP being the cheapest bridge again and again. So, what does all this mean if you're only holding XRP right now? Well, think about how many of these headlines you've celebrated. The lawsuit news, a bank partnership, a stablecoin, you name it.
Every one felt like your turn was finally coming and XRP was going to explode. And every time, the price went the opposite direction after the good news hit. Now, look at who's getting something out of it while you wait. Businesses get payments that land in seconds, even late on a Friday. Ripple earns the interest on every dollar behind RLUSD, and your XRP sits in a wallet waiting on a choice somebody else makes, one payment at a time.
Even the yield that Garlinghouse talked about at the Bell has no product and no date yet. So, most holders do the only thing they think they can. They wait for the next headline and the XRP just sits there doing nothing while they wait. And that's the part that you can actually change. The banks will pick whatever they pick.
Whether your XRP earns anything while you wait is up to you. So, I put together a free briefing for you showing you how to put your XRP to work for you while you wait, turn yield and compound interest. And also, I've been assembling the brightest minds in crypto over the past 10 years and we've created a private intelligence network through the link below. After you watch that free briefing, if it makes sense, then click the button below the page, fill out the short form, it takes less than a minute, and schedule a call with an expert on my team. We'll walk you through what your XRP could be doing while this story plays out, what the risks are associated with things like DeFi, and whether [clears throat] any of our strategies fit where you're at right now.
So, while the banks make up their minds, you've got a full plan for the XRP you already hold. So, the first link in the description says, "Put your XRP to work here." If you're on mobile, tap more, it's right at the top. Watch that short video on the page, fill out the quick form, then schedule a call with an expert on my team. So, as always, I'll see you at the top. You know what to do.
Stay bullish.
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Education and commentary only, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research and speak to a qualified advisor before making investment decisions. Figures and quotes are as reported in the video on October 25, 2026 and may have changed since.
