TL;DR

Hoskinson confirmed active discussions with Ripple’s leadership on RLUSD integration, with potential big news in March. Ripple’s stablecoin crossed $100M market cap, with major exchanges like Bitstamp embracing it.

One Step Closer?

The interactions between Cardanos founder, Charles Hoskinson, and some of Ripples executives in the past months have caused some members of the crypto community to speculate about a potential collaboration between the two ecosystems.

In November last year, the bosses exchanged kind words, while Brad Garlinghouse (Ripples CEO) said, Now is the time for the crypto community to come together, push for a level playing field and clear rules of the road. 

Earlier this year, Hoskinson took part in a heated discussion on X in which he hinted that Cardano might integrate Ripples stablecoin RLUSD into its system. Weve already had a call with the RLUSD people. We are actively talking, he stated at the time.

The chances of a partnership have seemingly gone up, considering Hoskinsons most recent disclosure. He said Cardanos team keeps an active conversation with Ripples leadership regarding the implementation of RLUSD. Hoskinson also indicated that big news might be announced next month:

We talk to David Schwartz and Brad Garlinghouse. Strong possibility we can negotiate (RLUSD). Ripple told us to wait till March as they just finished NYDFS. Well see if theres a roadmap and how theyll get that done.

A potential partnership between Cardano and Ripple (two of the most recognizable entities in the crypto world) may positively impact the prices of their native tokens. As of writing these lines, ADA and XRP are both in the red weekly following the severe market correction witnessed on February 3.

RLUSDs Advancement

Ripple made the headlines in April 2024, revealing its plans to design a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the American dollar. The product passed through a testing phase in the following months before being officially approved by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) in mid-December. 

At first, it received support from the cryptocurrency exchanges Uphold, Bitstamp, Bitso, Moonpay, CoinMENA, and Bullish.

Monica Long (Ripples president) said at the beginning of January that people should expect such a move from other popular platforms imminently. Shortly after, Bitstamp hopped on the bandwagon, listing the following trading pairs: RLUSD/EUR, RLUSD/USD, RLUSD/USDT, RLUSD/BTC, RLUSD/ETH, and RLUSD/XRP. 

Despite being far away from the leaders Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), RLUSD recently hit an important milestone: its market capitalization crossed $100 million. It will be interesting to see whether the product will keep progressing throughout 2025 and whether it will erase the big gap between itself and the leaders in its field.