Moody’s Ratings has assigned Ripple USD an A2 long-term deposit rating and P-1 short-term deposit rating, placing the stablecoin within investment-grade territory. According to the official Moody’s rating action, the assessment covers RLUSD issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum and reflects reserve quality, coverage, liquidity and redemption arrangements. P-1 is Moody’s highest short-term rating, while A2 sits within its upper-medium-grade category.
The rating arrives alongside broader institutional expansion for RLUSD. Ripple received final OCC approval on October 26 to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, while RLUSD’s current supply is roughly $2.6 billion. The two developments strengthen the regulated infrastructure surrounding RLUSD without changing its issuer: Standard Custody remains responsible for issuance, while the new national trust bank can manage segregated reserves and act as collateral trustee. CryptoCurrencyMagazine previously detailed the scope of Ripple’s final OCC approval.
Moody’s Focuses on Reserves and Redemption
Moody’s assessment points to reserves concentrated in short-duration U.S. government assets and cash, with BNY serving as the primary custodian and Standard Custody targeting 103% reserve coverage. The rating evaluates RLUSD’s ability to meet redemption obligations rather than guaranteeing that the token will always trade precisely at $1. Moody’s also identified legal limitations, including that Standard Custody is not currently bankruptcy-remote and RLUSD holders do not have direct ownership of reserve assets.
That external credit assessment can make RLUSD easier for institutional risk teams to evaluate, but a Moody’s rating does not automatically make the stablecoin eligible for every treasury, collateral or custody mandate. Individual institutions still apply their own counterparty, liquidity, custody and regulatory requirements. RLUSD is already being incorporated into institutional workflows, including 24/7 collateral at Ripple Prime and Mastercard stablecoin settlement infrastructure.
RLUSD Growth Does Not Automatically Flow to XRP
The relationship with XRP is more limited than the stablecoin’s expansion might imply. Current supply data puts approximately 38% of RLUSD on XRPL and 62% on Ethereum, although Ripple and Coinbase also announced Base support on October 28. RLUSD therefore does not need XRPL, much less XRP as a bridge asset, for every transfer or institutional use case. Its expansion across multiple networks makes stablecoin adoption and XRP value capture separate questions.
RLUSD activity on XRPL does create some native XRP usage. Every standard transaction destroys a small XRP fee, currently starting at 10 drops, while accounts generally maintain a 1 XRP base reserve and may face additional owner reserves for ledger objects. Those mechanics create incremental XRP utility, but the amounts involved are deliberately small and do not establish meaningful token demand simply because RLUSD transaction volume rises. XRP can also serve as an intermediary asset when pathfinding finds it economically efficient, but its use as a bridge is optional rather than mandatory.
The Moody’s rating therefore has a clearer immediate implication for RLUSD than for XRP. RLUSD now combines an investment-grade external credit assessment with expanding regulated custody, collateral and payment integrations, while XRP benefits only to the extent that those activities actually use XRPL accounts, transactions or XRP-based liquidity paths. Ripple’s broader stablecoin infrastructure strategy may increase those opportunities, but stablecoin growth alone does not establish direct value capture for the native asset.
