Ripple's Foray Into Africa's Stablecoin Market Could Replace Tether's USDT With RLUSD

In its efforts to make the RLUSD stablecoin globally available, Ripple XRP/USD has partnered with Africa-based companies to provide it to institutions in Africa.

What Happened: Ripple is bringing its USD-backed stablecoin RLUSD to Africa through new partnerships with fintech leaders Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card.

The launch aims to strengthen cross-border payments, treasury operations, and institutional blockchain adoption across the continent.

Since its debut in late 2024, RLUSD has grown to a more than $700 million market cap, positioning itself as a compliance-first, enterprise-grade stablecoin under New York regulatory oversight.

Ripple touts RLUSD as a trusted bridge between traditional finance and crypto, designed to support large-scale institutional use.

For its Africa rollout:

Chipper Cash will leverage RLUSD for instant, cheaper cross-border payments,
VALR plans to expand trusted stablecoin listings on its exchange,
Yellow Card is integrating RLUSD into payment infrastructure for emerging markets.

Ripple emphasized RLUSD's utility across use cases like settlement, remittances, liquidity access, DeFi integration, fiat-crypto bridging, and even tokenizing real-world assets such as commodities and securities.

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Tether’s USDT USDT/USD is dominant in Africa, as it processes more than half of the total transactions in the country, CryptoSlate reported.

Also Read: XRP Hovers Below $3: When Is The Big Breakout Coming?

Why It Matters: Ripple is also piloting RLUSD for humanitarian finance in Kenya.

In partnership with Mercy Corps Ventures, it is testing climate insurance payouts for farmers, with smart contracts automatically releasing funds based on satellite weather data.

Beyond Africa, RLUSD is available on major global exchanges including Kraken, Gemini, Bitstamp, Bitso, Mercado Bitcoin, and Uphold. Ripple sees RLUSD as a worldwide stablecoin standard built on compliance and institutional trust.

In a related announcement, Ripple projected that 10% of global assets could be tokenized by 2030, with digital asset custody expected to reach $16 trillion, a trend that could further accelerate stablecoin adoption.

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