Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s chief executive, in an August 2014 file photo. Photo: Christopher Michel / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. Resized.
Ripple and Robinhood announced a partnership Tuesday that will bring Ripple’s dollar-linked stablecoin into more of Robinhood’s trading business and put Ripple software behind the brokerage’s own cash management.
The companies said Ripple USD, known as RLUSD, is already live on Robinhood Chain and on Bitstamp by Robinhood. Availability in the Robinhood app is expected later this year, so Tuesday’s announcement does not mean ordinary app customers can all use the token immediately.
The agreement reaches beyond adding another cryptocurrency to a trading screen. Robinhood plans to use RLUSD on the XRP Ledger for institutional settlement, the process of completing transactions between financial firms. It will also integrate Ripple Treasury to manage cash, liquidity, payments and financial risk across its global operations.
A dollar token for trading and settlement
A stablecoin is a digital token designed to track a reference asset, in this case the U.S. dollar. That makes its intended role different from a cryptocurrency bought mainly in the hope that its price will rise. Here, the companies are positioning RLUSD as a tool for moving and settling money within a broader trading network.
Bitstamp is the institutional part of that expansion. Under the partnership, its clients gain a connection between the exchange’s trading services and Ripple’s financing and settlement tools. For Robinhood’s retail customers, the immediate distinction is timing: the infrastructure and Bitstamp availability are live, while the main app rollout is still planned.
Ripple said RLUSD has grown to more than $2.5 billion in market capitalization since its December 2024 launch. The companies put Robinhood’s global funded customer count at 28.6 million. Those figures describe the potential reach of the businesses, not the number of customers already using RLUSD.
Financing on one side, corporate cash on the other
The agreement also builds on an existing relationship through Ripple Prime. Ripple said that business provides Bitstamp by Robinhood with lending and margin financing across roughly 20 digital assets, while Ripple Prime clients can access spot trading on Bitstamp. Spot trading involves buying or selling the asset itself.
Support for perpetual futures trading on Bitstamp is expected later this year, according to the announcement. That is another planned step rather than a service the companies said launched Tuesday.
Robinhood’s own treasury integration addresses a different need: keeping track of money across accounts, currencies and subsidiaries. The stated scope includes cash-flow forecasting, payments, risk management and intercompany netting, which offsets amounts owed between parts of the same company.
For businesses considering similar systems, the partnership shows how stablecoin services are being packaged with the less visible financial work behind a trading platform. It does not establish how much money Robinhood will route through RLUSD or how quickly customers will adopt it. The announcement did not disclose a contract value or set a specific date for the app and futures launches.
JBizNews Desk | New York
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