Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company has received approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to launch its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin.
Garlinhouse made the announcement in a social media post on December 11, adding that the token will be live soon.
The NYDFS was initially planned approve the stablecoin on December 4, but “unexpected developments‘ delayed the launch. Ripple said it remains committed to the launch the stablecoin under the supervision of the regulator.
Notably, New York requires crypto companies that offer services to state residents to obtain a BitLicense or a limited-purpose trust business charter from the NYDFS.
Tough competition
Supply in the stablecoin market reached an all-time high of $193.6 billion on December 8 and stands at $192.8 billion at the time of writing. The market is heavily concentrated in the Tether USD (USDT), which has a size of almost $141 billion.
As a result, competing in this market becomes challenging. A recent example was PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD, which saw its market capitalization drop by around 50% between the end of August and the time of publication.
On the other hand, Ethena’s stablecoin USDe has been gaining ground in recent weeks, with a market size of over $5.6 billion, thanks to incentive programs. Notably, this is larger than the market cap of Sky’s (former MakerDAO) stablecoins combined.
PYUSD surpassed the $1 billion market cap when the incentive program was active on Solana’s decentralized ecosystem, and fell after its end. Meanwhile, USDe currently offers an annual return of 27%.
As the market heats up and investors may get more value incentives, RLUSD’s opportunities could revolve around offering attractive returns to its users.
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Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law graduate and a seasoned journalist with six years of experience in the crypto industry. His expertise focuses primarily on the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and developments in decentralized finance (DeFi).