Ripple CEO Monica Long revealed that the company’s upcoming Ripple USD (RLUSD) dollar stablecoin has already been secured ahead of its official launch. In a speech at the Fintech Festival in Singapore, Long emphasized that stablecoins will become a “massive trend” in the payments industry.

Ripple is awaiting regulatory approval

In interview with CNBC’s Tanvir Gill, Long discussed the emerging stablecoin market and its expected growth. “The current market capitalization of Stablecoins is around $170 billion, but this is expected to exceed $3 trillion in just a few years as there will be more demand drivers such as payments,” she said. “We’re talking about Ripple and we’re processing over $70 billion in assets, so this use case is going to be a huge trend.”

Long highlighted the growing interest of major payment players in adopting stablecoins for transactions. She cited Stripe’s recent acquisition of Bridge as an example of established financial institutions leaning into the stablecoin space. “It is a major payments player that is leaning towards using stablecoins for payments,” she noted.

When asked about competition with existing stablecoins, Long expressed optimism about market expansion rather than direct competition. “I expect the market to really take off,” she said. “From our perspective, we have a use case; we have customers who already want to use stablecoins for payments, so we think we can be a great provider.”

Regarding the launch of RLUSD, Long stressed the importance of regulatory approval. “US Dollar Ripple [stablecoin is] not launched yet; we are operationally ready, but what is really important for us is to get regulatory approval,” she explained. “The New York Department of Financial Services is reviewing our trust application.”

Long also addressed the potential rise of other fiat-backed stablecoins. “As more and more stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar and most stablecoin transactions take place in the US dollar, do you think dollarization could be a solution?” Gill asked. Long replied: “I believe so, and it goes back to use cases like payments where you think about traditional use cases and that’s where there really is a need for currency exchange. I really think we will see new forms of fiat currency turned into stablecoins.”

She noted regional preferences for stablecoin adoption, particularly in Latin America. “There are some markets, like Latin America, where the preference is for dollar stablecoins, but I think the world will open up to more types of stablecoins,” Long said.

Following the event, Long reached out to X (formerly Twitter) to reiterate the industry’s interest in stablecoins: “After a fantastic week at the Singapore Fintech Festival, everyone was talking about stablecoins on and off stage. I spoke with Tanvir Gill on CNBC about growing demand (e.g. LATAM wants USD-based stablecoins, but EUR and SGD could very well strengthen their position in the market) and how Ripple USD (RLUSD) already has customers ready to use after its public launch.”

At press time, the price of XRP was $0.60.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com