Ripple has announced that its RLUSD stablecoin is now compatible with layer-2 blockchain networks. The stablecoin major announced the development on December 15. Ripple has teamed up with Wormhole to use its Native Token Transfer (NTT) infrastructure to give the RLUSD a multi-chain capability.
The testing of RLUSD’s L2 expansion will go live on Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain – facilitated by Wormhole.
“RLUSD was initially issued on both the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and Ethereum, with the clear goal of enabling cross-chain and DeFi opportunities. This latest step—expanding to L2s—is essential for a scalable, efficient, and interoperable future,” Ripple said in its statement.
Jack McDonald, SVP of Stablecoin at Ripple said that in the next leg of the digital assets adoption, stablecoins will act as a gateway for people into the DeFi ecosystem.
“By launching RLUSD on these L2 networks—we are not just expanding utility; we are setting the definitive standard where compliance and on-chain efficiency converge,” McDonald said.
Wormhole’s NTT standard will ensure that RLUSD is backed by onchain liquidity while the issuance and control of the token is maintained by Ripple itself. The platform, that defins itself as an interoperability platform connecting DeFi with TradFi, said that major asset issuers are now focussing on interoperability as a critical need to push their tokens into adoption.
“With NTT, token issuers eliminate the need for fragmented liquidity or wrapped assets, allowing a single, canonical version of RLUSD to exist natively on each blockchain with Ripple owning the contract,” Wormhole noted.
For now, the RLUSD has been in a trial phase with only select entities having interacted with it. Ripple plans to start a wider roll out of the stablecoin next year. The stablecoin, however, has already made a mark in the market.
Recently, Abu Dhabi recognized the RLUSD as an official stablecoin for transactions within its industrial zones. Mastercard has also collaborated with Ripple to enable settlements via the RLUSD stablecoin. The token surpassed the $1 billion market cap in November this year.