RLUSD Supply Hits Record High, Nears PYUSD Market Cap

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Data trackers put RLUSD circulating supply near $2.52 billion on Tuesday morning. That marks a new all-time high for Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.

RLUSD Supply Sets a New Record

The exact number depends on when you check it. On September 28, flash desks and DefiLlama pegged RLUSD supply at about $2.49 billion. By the morning of September 29, DefiLlama, stables.cool, and Portal Cripto already showed roughly $2.52 billion.

So the widely shared $2.49 billion figure is already a little stale. According to DefiLlama, the live number now sits higher. Either way, the trend points up.

The growth this year is steep. RLUSD started 2026 near $1.34 billion, based on DefiLlama’s history. That works out to about 86% growth against the September 28 print.

The Gap With PYUSD Keeps Moving

PYUSD still leads, but not by much. On September 28, the pairing showed PYUSD at $2.739 billion and RLUSD at $2.491 billion. That left a gap of about $248 million, the figure now spreading on X.

That snapshot is already dated. On September 29, DefiLlama put the gap near $170 million. The tracker stables.cool showed roughly $190 million. In short, both tokens now sit in the same neighborhood.

Still, this is a second-tier race. USDT and USDC dwarf both coins. The global stablecoin market sits near $306 billion, so a $2.5 billion token remains a minor player.

Where RLUSD Supply Actually Lives

Most RLUSD still sits on Ethereum. DefiLlama’s September 29 data shows $1.396 billion on Ethereum and $1.121 billion on the XRP Ledger. So the split runs about 56% Ethereum and 44% XRPL.

That mix matters for Ripple’s pitch. The company frames the XRP Ledger as a cheap settlement rail. Yet Ethereum still holds the larger share of RLUSD supply.

The community dashboard rlusd.fyi tells a similar story. It reported 12,553 Ethereum holders and 67,400 XRPL holders on September 29. So most holders sit on XRPL, while most value sits on Ethereum.

Supply Growth Is Not the Same as Adoption

A rising market cap looks impressive. Because RLUSD trades near $1, though, its market cap simply tracks tokens minted. In other words, a record cap means more supply, not a price rally.

The activity data tells a cooler story. RLUSD’s tracked DeFi TVL sits near $530 million, according to DefiLlama. That is a small slice of a $2.5 billion supply.

On-chain metrics from RWA.xyz add more context. The site lists 83,043 RLUSD holders but only 12,478 monthly active addresses. So many balances simply sit idle in a given month.

PYUSD still leads on usage. RWA.xyz shows 171,256 holders, $26.95 billion in monthly transfers, and 80,067 active addresses. By those measures, PayPal’s coin keeps a broader footprint.

What Ripple’s Team Says

Ripple has leaned on utility, not supply. Jack McDonald, Ripple’s SVP of stablecoins, told CoinDesk on September 12 that daily activity matters more. He said daily volume rose from about $200 million early in 2026 to roughly $750 million.

Those are Ripple’s own figures, not a public dashboard. So treat them as company data. Still, they point to real payment flows behind the mint.

The backing sits with regulated firms. Standard Custody, a NYDFS trust company, issues RLUSD. BNY acts as primary reserve custodian, and monthly attestations cover the reserves.

Ripple’s latest attestation showed $2.4 billion outstanding as of September 3. That report lags the live on-chain figure. So read it as a period snapshot, not a real-time feed.

A Disputed PYUSD Peak

The PYUSD decline story needs a caveat. The viral post says PYUSD is down 35% from its peak. That math holds only against a $4.214 billion peak dated March 5, 2026.

Not every tracker agrees on that peak. The site stables.cool lists a lower all-time high of $3.91 billion on December 12, 2025. So the single canonical PYUSD peak is not settled.

The cause of the drop is clearer. PYUSD grew fast on DeFi incentives and rewards. When those programs tapered, supply contracted by roughly 30%, according to Stablecoin Insider.

PayPal and Paxos have not commented this week. No fresh statement addresses the contraction or the RLUSD gap. So the reasons remain partly inferred, not confirmed.

What Comes Next for RLUSD Supply

The race will stay close and noisy. Both supplies move daily, and the gap is only tens to low hundreds of millions. So a single day could flip the order, then flip it back.

Bigger questions remain open. It is not clear whether the latest mints reflect organic payments, exchange programs, or pre-funding. Analysts also debate how much of either coin stays economically active.

Major outlets have not covered this week’s print. CoinDesk, The Block, Bloomberg, and Reuters ran no matching story. CoinDesk’s last on-record RLUSD piece was September 12, at about $2.4 billion. Readers can verify the live figures on DefiLlama and Ripple’s transparency page.

This article is for information only. It is not financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decision.