Ripple Builds RLUSD - Ethereum Gets the Supply

According to DeFiLlama, the total supply of RLUSD stablecoins issued on Ethereum has surpassed 1 billion.

At first glance, nothing unusual here:

• RLUSD has been promoted exceptionally well,
• and stablecoins in general are one of the strongest segments of the crypto market right now. Everyone uses them - even people who remain skeptical about everything else in this industry.

So it’s no surprise that Ripple managed to attract a billion dollars into their stablecoin so quickly.

But this raises a different question: why on Ethereum? Doesn’t Ripple have its own network - one that RLUSD should naturally be strengthening? It does. Yet the amount of RLUSD minted there is significantly smaller.

This situation reminds me of Tether and Bitcoin.

• Tether’s top managers have repeatedly emphasized their support for Bitcoin.
• But the original USDT issued on Bitcoin never gained traction. Everything changed once USDT appeared on Ethereum - that version became the standard almost instantly.
• And even the two new Bitcoin-based versions announced this year (on Taproot Assets and on RGB) remain unused. According to Tether’s official transparency page, not a single token has been issued there. Zero. A complete failure.

So, it turns out the key factor isn’t which network a stablecoin was intended for - but which networks the actual users prefer to mint it on. And it seems that users of Bitcoin and Ripple networks simply have far less demand for stablecoins than those operating on Ethereum.

Why do you think that is?

• Are BTC and XRP themselves stable enough that people don’t feel the need for an additional layer of stability?
• Or is it simply that Ethereum has far more active users than Bitcoin and Ripple combined?