Ripple Wants RLUSD Inside 13 Trillion of Corporate Cash Flows: Inside the Stablecoin Treasury Push

Ripple’s stablecoin chief says the corporate treasurers already using its platform move roughly 13 trillion USD in transactions every year — and the company wants to connect that money to its RLUSD stablecoin, which has swollen past 2.4 billion USD in circulation.

By Jennifer Kim | September 13, 2026

The Hook: A 13 Trillion Dollar Door Opens for a Stablecoin

Speaking to CoinDesk in an interview reported September 12, Ripple stablecoin chief Jack McDonald laid out the company’s next big bet for RLUSD: corporate treasury operations. Ripple entered that business through its 1 billion USD acquisition of treasury-management firm GTreasury in October 2025. The platform, now called Ripple Treasury, serves about 1,200 corporate treasurers and chief financial officers.

According to McDonald, those clients — who handle payments, forecasting and cash movement across borders and between subsidiaries — touch roughly 13 trillion USD worth of transactions annually. “That customer base hadn’t been onchain,” he told CoinDesk. “So that opportunity set is just massive.”

The Fine Print: What 13 Trillion Actually Means

Before anyone treats 13 trillion USD as a forecast, a reality check: the figure describes the existing transaction volume flowing through Ripple Treasury’s customer base. It is not a projection of RLUSD volume, a revenue estimate, or a commitment from any customer to adopt the stablecoin. No company has publicly said it will replace its bank wires with RLUSD. The number defines the size of the door — not how much of it will open.

• RLUSD supply — 2.4 billion USD, up more than 50 percent in a month (Token Terminal data cited by CoinDesk)
• Where it lives — about 1.4 billion USD on Ethereum and 1 billion USD on the XRP Ledger
• Daily activity — from roughly 200 million USD early in 2026 to about 750 million USD in August, per McDonald
• Customer base — around 1,200 corporate treasurers and CFOs via Ripple Treasury
• Regulation — issued under New York Department of Financial Services supervision, fully backed by cash and cash-equivalent reserves

The Core Conflict: Giant Opportunity, Small Market Share

For all its growth, RLUSD remains a minnow. CoinDesk notes that total stablecoin circulation has exceeded 300 billion USD, meaning Ripple’s token holds only a sliver of a market dominated by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. Ripple’s response is to compete on use rather than size. McDonald emphasized “utility and the daily activity” over headline supply — pointing to payments, settlement and collateral as the stablecoin’s main institutional jobs.

The treasury push is also why the growth numbers deserve a footnote. Daily activity figures can include the same tokens moving repeatedly, and supply growth can reflect a handful of large institutional flows rather than broad adoption. McDonald’s own framing — that a stablecoin pegged to the dollar should be judged by transaction use, not price — is fair, but it also means investors should watch sustained activity trends rather than single-month jumps.

Ripple is also preparing a MiCA-compliant dual-issuance structure before broadly offering the stablecoin across European markets, aligning the product with the European Union’s stablecoin rulebook as it expands internationally.

Market Implications: Why This Matters Beyond XRP Fans

Stablecoins used to be a retail trading convenience — digital dollars for buying and selling coins. Stories like this one show the battlefield shifting to boring, enormous corporate cash movement: payroll across borders, subsidiary funding, collateral posting. If even a small fraction of treasury flows eventually runs through tokenized dollars, the winners will be the stablecoins that are regulated, integrated into existing corporate software, and trusted by CFOs. Ripple just bought itself a seat in that room via GTreasury.

For XRP holders, the connection is indirect. RLUSD adoption does not automatically translate into XRP demand, and CoinDesk reported no verified price reaction attributable to McDonald’s comments. The cleaner read is strategic: Ripple is building a payments-and-treasury ecosystem where its blockchain, its stablecoin and its software reinforce each other.

The Verdict

Ripple’s 13 trillion USD talking point is an addressable market, not a promise — but the strategy behind it is concrete: 1,200 real corporate clients, a stablecoin growing more than 50 percent in a month, and a regulated issuance structure that survives institutional due diligence. The bull case says stablecoins that embed themselves in corporate treasury workflows become plumbing for the financial system. The bear case says converting traditional treasurers to onchain dollars will be slow, competitive and margin-thin. Both can be true. Watch the daily-activity trend, not the headline number.

The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.