Ripple

Ripple Labs Inc. is a privately held company that sells financial infrastructure to businesses: cross-border payments, digital asset custody, a dollar stablecoin called RLUSD, prime brokerage and corporate treasury software. Its customers are banks, payment firms, crypto companies, funds and corporate finance teams. Ripple says its products are used by hundreds of customers in more than 50 countries and that it has deployed over $600 million into more than 70 direct investments since 2015.

XRP is a separate thing. It is the native asset of the XRP Ledger, a public blockchain that keeps running whatever Ripple does. Ripple has sold XRP for years, which is what the SEC case was about, so news about the company moves the price, but a licence, lawsuit or acquisition involving Ripple is not a change to the ledger itself. Ripple stopped publishing its quarterly XRP Markets Report after the first quarter of 2025, so there is no longer a regular company report on its XRP holdings and sales; this profile does not repeat third-party estimates of them.

Chris Larsen, listed by Ripple as executive chairman and co-founder, leads the board. Brad Garlinghouse is chief executive, Monica Long is president, Jon Bilich is chief financial officer and Stuart Alderoty is chief legal officer. The board also includes David Schwartz. Ripple says it has more than 15 offices but does not name a headquarters on its company page.

Ripple's products page groups the business into five lines. The descriptions below are the company's own; Ripple does not publish prices for any of them, which are negotiated with each client.

Ripple grew several of these lines by buying companies. It completed the purchase of Hidden Road, a prime broker, in October 2025 and renamed it Ripple Prime. The Block reported that Ripple agreed to buy GTreasury for about $1 billion in October 2025,.

RLUSD is a dollar stablecoin that Ripple launched in December 2024. Its legal issuer is Standard Custody & Trust Company, LLC, a limited purpose trust company chartered by the New York State Department of Financial Services, and Ripple's stablecoin page also lists the Dubai Financial Services Authority among its regulators. It runs on seven networks: the XRP Ledger, Ethereum, Base, Optimism, Ink, Unichain and the XRPL EVM Sidechain.

Ripple says RLUSD is backed by US dollar deposits, short-term US Treasuries, cash equivalents and government money market funds, held in segregated accounts, with BNY chosen in July 2025 as primary reserve custodian. An independent US-licensed accounting firm, which Ripple's transparency page does not name, attests to the reserves each month; the latest report listed is for September 2026. On 22 October 2026 the page showed $2,382.8 million of RLUSD in circulation and $2,528.0 million in reserve funds, about 106% cover on Ripple's own figures. A monthly attestation checks balances on a date; it is not an audit.

Only customers who sign Ripple's RLUSD customer agreement can redeem with the issuer. The user terms say redemption is at par less fees but do not state the fees or a minimum. Most people who hold RLUSD buy and sell it on an exchange instead. For how RLUSD compares with other stablecoins, see the rating card.

Yes. RLUSD's user terms let Ripple blacklist a wallet address if applicable law or its internal compliance policies require it, with or without advance notice. The terms also allow Ripple to burn RLUSD held in a particular wallet and mint the same amount to a different wallet, and they disclaim liability for losses that follow from either step.

The burn-and-reissue power goes further than a freeze. It means the issuer can, in effect, move a balance from one address to another, which may help victims of theft or a lost-key case but also means a holder's RLUSD is never beyond the issuer's reach. Holders should read this as part of what a regulated, issuer-controlled stablecoin is, the same category as USDC and USDT.

RLUSD is small next to the two dominant dollar tokens. On Ripple's figures there was about $2.4 billion of RLUSD in circulation on 22 October 2026. Tether's transparency data showed about $181 billion of USDT a week later, and Circle reported $73.3 billion of USDC at the end of June 2026. Size matters for a stablecoin because it decides how many exchanges list it and how easily a large holder can sell at one dollar.

Ripple's availability page lists partners that support RLUSD across seven pages, among them DeFi protocols such as Aave and Balancer, on-ramps such as Banxa and Alchemy Pay, trading firms such as B2C2, and Binance.US. Ripple notes that it does not endorse the companies on that list. The page does not set out country restrictions, so check the rules of the platform you use.

On 26 October 2026 Ripple announced final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter Ripple National Trust Bank, about ten months after the OCC's conditional approval in December 2025. Ripple says the bank will manage the segregated reserves behind RLUSD, act as collateral trustee for RLUSD holders and offer fiduciary custody of digital assets once it opens.

Ripple says RLUSD itself will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust under New York supervision. The new bank adds a federal supervisor to the part of the group that holds the reserves. A national trust bank does not take deposits or make loans, and nothing in Ripple's announcement says RLUSD holders gain deposit insurance.

Some commentary has linked the charter to a Federal Reserve master account, which would let reserves sit at the central bank. Ripple's announcement does not mention one, and a master account is a separate decision by the Federal Reserve. Our news desk covered the wider charter round in a report on US trust bank approvals; Circle received the same kind of charter in July 2026.

The SEC sued Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen in December 2020, alleging that Ripple's sales of XRP were unregistered securities offerings. The district court's final judgment ordered Ripple to pay a $125,035,150 civil penalty and barred it from violating the registration provisions of the Securities Act of 1933. The SEC appealed and Ripple cross-appealed.

On 7 August 2025 both sides filed a joint stipulation dismissing their appeals in the Second Circuit. The SEC's litigation release says this resolves the case and that the final judgment, including the penalty and the injunction, remains in effect. Earlier in 2025 the judge had refused a joint request to cut the penalty to $50 million and lift the injunction, according to press reports. For a reader, the practical meaning is that the case is over and Ripple operates under a standing court order about how it sells XRP to institutions.

Ripple is privately held and does not publish accounts or a list of shareholders. Its most recent disclosed round, announced on 5 November 2025, raised $500 million of new common equity at a $40 billion valuation, led by Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities, according to The Block. Coverage of that round said it followed a tender offer earlier in 2025 at the same valuation.

Ripple has not filed to go public. Search interest in a Ripple stock or IPO is steady, but there is no listed Ripple share; products sold as exposure to Ripple's private equity are offered by third parties and carry their own risks.

What can go wrong depends on which Ripple product you touch.

• RLUSD holders depend on reserves reported monthly by an unnamed accounting firm and on exchanges for exit, since direct redemption is limited to Ripple customers.
• Ripple's terms allow it to blacklist an RLUSD address with or without notice, and to burn tokens in one wallet and reissue them to another; holders can lose access to RLUSD in either case.
• Business clients of Ripple Payments, Custody and Prime face counterparty risk on a private company that does not publish financial statements.
• People who treat Ripple news as XRP news can misjudge both: the ledger works without the company, and the company's value is not the token's price.
• Fake Ripple and XRP giveaways that use executives' names circulate widely; treat any offer to multiply XRP sent to an address as fraud.

Businesses start with Ripple through a sales conversation; there is no self-serve sign-up for payments, custody, prime brokerage or treasury software. Terms, fees and exit arrangements are set in each client contract.

Individuals mostly meet Ripple through RLUSD or XRP bought on an exchange. To leave RLUSD, sell it on an exchange that lists it or swap it for another asset; becoming a Ripple customer to redeem directly is aimed at institutions. Check which network an exchange uses for RLUSD before withdrawing, because the XRP Ledger version and the Ethereum version are not interchangeable without a supported bridge.

Ripple's official channels are ripple.com, its X account (@Ripple), LinkedIn and YouTube, all linked from its homepage. Ripple does not run consumer support for XRP held on exchanges or in personal wallets; those questions go to the platform that holds the asset.

Treat any message from a Ripple account promising XRP or RLUSD in return for a deposit as fraud. The company's RLUSD transparency reports and user terms are published on ripple.com, which is the place to check claims about reserves or redemption.

Key dates from Ripple's own announcements and the SEC record.

• December 2020: SEC files suit over XRP sales.
• December 2024: RLUSD launches.
• July 2025: BNY selected as primary custodian of RLUSD reserves.
• August 2025: SEC and Ripple dismiss their appeals; the case ends with the final judgment in place.
• October 2025: Hidden Road acquisition completed and renamed Ripple Prime; GTreasury deal announced.
• November 2025: $500 million raised at a $40 billion valuation.
• December 2025: conditional OCC approval for Ripple National Trust Bank.
• October 2026: final OCC approval for the trust bank.