Ripple Launches RLUSD in Japan With $6,200 Cap, XRP Ledger Excluded

XRP News

Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD went live in Japan on June 24 after securing formal approval from the Financial Services Agency, with distribution running through SBI VC Trade’s VCTRADE platform. The company’s official disclosure confirms RLUSD is now the second foreign-issued dollar stablecoin cleared for regulated circulation in Japan, after Circle’s USDC. Regulators classified the asset as a Type 4 Electronic Payment Instrument under the country’s revised Payment Services Act, the framework that, since June 1, has recognized overseas stablecoins as lawful payment tools. The rollout fulfills a memorandum of understanding that Ripple, the issuer behind XRP and the XRP Ledger, signed with SBI Group in August 2025.

The Japanese version of RLUSD ships with three notable constraints, according to the official launch terms. Each transaction is capped at roughly 1 million yen, about $6,200, matching the standard ceiling applied to funds-transfer-style electronic payment instruments. Despite Ripple operating its own XRP Ledger, the debut build supports only the Ethereum-based version of RLUSD, leaving the native XRPL issuance out of the initial Japanese launch. Service coverage spans both institutional clients and retail users through the existing VCTRADE rails. On-chain records also indicate Ripple and SBI VC Trade had quietly begun limited distribution on March 31, 2026, well before this week’s public announcement formalized the pilot.

Globally, RLUSD has grown to roughly $1.7 billion in circulating market value in the 18 months since its late-2024 debut, a footprint that still trails USDC near $60 billion and Tether’s USDT around $150 billion. Unlike algorithmic stablecoins that lean on code-enforced pegs, RLUSD is backed one-to-one by U.S. dollar deposits, Treasuries and cash equivalents, with reserves attested monthly by an independent accounting firm. BNY Mellon serves as custodian for those reserves. The company’s data shows monthly active addresses rose 17% while monthly transfer volume climbed 19% to about $3.5 billion, signaling steady, if modest, traction against far larger incumbents.

For XRP holders, the more consequential detail sits on the ledger itself. On-chain data shows RLUSD supply on the XRP Ledger has climbed to roughly $792 million, approaching the volume circulating on Ethereum and underscoring Ripple’s push to anchor liquidity on its native chain. Analysts highlight that a Japanese dollar-stablecoin presence could feed directly into XRP utility, since RLUSD settlement can route through Ripple’s cross-border corridors where XRP already functions as a bridge asset. The XRP Ledger’s built-in automated market maker and decentralized exchange give the stablecoin native venues for swaps, deepening on-chain liquidity for the broader altcoin ecosystem.

The launch lands alongside SBI’s own yen-pegged token, JPYSC, which the group opened to SBI VC Trade account holders on June 24 as a trust-type electronic payment instrument issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank. Developed with Startale Group under Japan’s regulatory framework, JPYSC is structured to remove the 1-million-yen ceiling applied to some payment products. Because SBI now hosts both RLUSD and JPYSC on the same exchange, the two assets create a direct yen-to-dollar conversion channel within a single regulated venue — effectively an on-exchange atomic swap route between the currencies. The convergence sharpens Japan’s emerging multi-rail stablecoin market.

That rapid rollout has already drawn a security warning from the XRP Ledger community. Validators flagged that fake tokens using the JPYSC name and ticker have begun circulating, even though SBI has not confirmed any public JPYSC issuance on the XRPL or any other open blockchain. A prominent XRPL validator known as Vet stressed that no verified JPYSC has been minted on the ledger, urging users to check the issuer address, trustline records and token metadata before transacting. A trustline — the XRPL record defining which issuer a wallet will accept tokens from — is the key checkpoint for distinguishing genuine assets from imitations on a permissionless ledger.

COINOTAG’s proprietary 42-indicator composite scoring engine rates the $1.0453 resistance at 86/100 — its strongest overhead level — driven by the confluence of the daily Pivot Point, a bearish MACD cross and the volume point of control, while immediate support at $1.0122 scores 77/100 on a Fibonacci floor and the Donchian lower band. XRP changes hands near $1.03, down 3.3% on the day, with RSI at 30 flashing oversold against a broader bear-market backdrop. Our derivatives read is cautionary: funding has flipped negative at -0.0115% even as the long/short account ratio sits at 2.93 (74.5% long) across $636 million of open interest — a crowded long that, with a Fear and Greed print of 12 (Extreme Fear), risks a squeeze. A daily close below $1.0122 invalidates the bullish case and opens $0.97; reclaiming $1.0453 is the bull trigger.