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.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
13 trillion is just existing transaction volume of their treasury clients. not rlUSD demand, not a forecast. classic ripple move framing a TAM as adoption
this. zero CFOs have said they will swap bank wires for rlUSD. the door is big, nobody has walked through it
a CFO who did switch would need a board memo justifying a stablecoin over a bank wire. show me one memo and ill show you adoption
the memo question is the kill shot. no treasurer risks a career on 2.4 billion of liquidity when their bank clears the same wire without a board vote
the board memo point wins the whole thread. treasury teams move when their auditors get comfortable, never when a vendor posts a TAM chart
the memo problem is real but daily activity went 200M to 750M this year per mcdonald. somebody is using it, just probably not a fortune 500 treasurer yet
200M to 750M daily is real usage even if its crypto native for now. the corporate pipe is upside on top of an actual base
750M daily is nice until you notice most of it is arb bots cycling between venues. treasury desks are a different animal, they want SOC2 reports not throughput stats
no treasurer ever got fired for wiring through their existing bank. that single sentence explains stablecoin adoption timelines better than any TAM deck
exactly, 13 trillion is the pipe and the water still has to choose it. converting even 1 percent means rlUSD supply up 50x from 2.4 billion
1 percent conversion means supply up 50x, so ripple is realistically hoping for fractions of a percent. TAM framing doing the heavy lifting as always
fractions of a percent is honestly the bullish case here. 1200 clients moving even a sliver of that 13T is billions in float on 2.4B today
billions in float on a coin nobody outside crypto settlement desks holds. the float thesis only works if rlUSD becomes redeemable everywhere a treasurer already banks
Supply up 50x also means the reserve grows 50x, which is the actual business case. The TAM chart is marketing, but the float math is why they paid a billion for GTreasury.
50x supply growth also means 50x reserve custody revenue somewhere. someone at ripple definitely already ran that slide
floatfeeder 50x the reserves also means 50x the t-bill revenue split across a coin still waiting for its first named treasurer. the slide works, the pilot doesnt
supply up 50% in a month yet 1.4B of the 2.4B lives on ethereum, not xrpl. awkward for the xrp faithful
and the ethereum share keeps growing even while ripple treasury pitches xrpl settlement. their own clients are voting with the chain
1.4 of the 2.4 billion sitting on ethereum while ripple pitches xrpl settlement is my favorite stat of the year. even their own stablecoin voted with its feet
1.4B on ethereum out of 2.4B total will never stop being funny. even ripples own stablecoin looked at the xrpl settlement pitch and chose the chain with the users
their own stablecoin choosing ethereum over xrpl remains the funniest self own in crypto. pitching treasury settlement while your coin lives on someone elses chain
1200 CFOs already sitting on GTreasury rails is the real asset here. whether any of them ever touch rlUSD is a 2027 question at best
1200 treasury clients sounds great until you remember GTreasury cost a billion. ripple needs real rlUSD demand to justify that receipt
paid 1 billion for GTreasury and the stablecoin it supposedly funnels into sits at 2.4B circulation. that math needs a LOT of treasury adoption to ever make sense
13T touched by 1200 CFOs and ripple wants even a tenth of a percent onchain. never mind adoption, the audit question kills most of these conversations before they start
2.4B supply and a 1B acquisition receipt. ripple buying distribution the slow and expensive way