Robinhood taps Ripple’s $2.5 billion RLUSD stablecoin despite backing rival USDG

The Global Dollar Network, founded in 2024, brings together companies that help distribute USDG and share in the revenue it generates. The arrangement gives members a financial incentive to promote USDG, but Robinhood’s partnership with Ripple shows that those incentives do not preclude members from offering competing stablecoins. Other founding members included Kraken, Galaxy Digital, Anchorage Digital and CoinDesk's parent company, Bullish. Arbitrum joined earlier this month.

Robinhood has already given USDG a role in its products. In July, the consortium announced that USDG would be the default lending asset for Robinhood Earn, its onchain lending product.

Robinhood did not announce any changes to its USDG agreement, and it remains unclear whether RLUSD will be offered alongside USDG in the same products. CoinDesk contacted Robinhood regarding this matter, but the fintech did not respond immediately.

Robinhood reported 28.6 million funded customers at the end of August. The companies have not said how many will be eligible to use RLUSD when it becomes available in the app.

The partnership also covers Robinhood’s institutional business. Bitstamp will use RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for settlement, while Robinhood plans to adopt Ripple’s treasury software for cash management, payments and forecasting.

Ripple Prime already provides Bitstamp with lending and margin financing across roughly 20 digital assets. The companies plan to add perpetual futures trading later this year.