RLUSD Launches in Japan via SBI as XRP Holds $1.09, 32.74B Still in Escrow

XRP News

Ripple's dollar-pegged token RLUSD has gone live in Japan after the country's Financial Services Agency cleared it as an electronic payment instrument under the Payment Services Act. The approval, granted under a framework for foreign-issued stablecoins that took effect on June 1, lets SBI VC Trade distribute the token to both institutional and retail customers through its VCTRADE platform. It marks one of the first foreign dollar stablecoins admitted to Japan's tightly regulated market. RLUSD has reached roughly $1.7 billion in value since launching in late 2024, a small share next to the roughly $186 billion in Tether and $74 billion in Circle's USDC that dominate the sector.

The rollout delivers on a memorandum of understanding Ripple and SBI signed in August 2025 and extends a partnership that dates to 2016, when the two firms began collaborating on cross-border payments and blockchain infrastructure. Ripple positions RLUSD as a bridge for payments, tokenization and collateral management, linking Japanese businesses to global dollar liquidity. The move deepens the company's footprint in a market where XRP recently secured a spot listing on Rakuten Wallet. RLUSD's supply has cooled since early June, slipping from an all-time high near $1.8 billion to about $1.59 billion, though it remains up roughly 271% over the past year.

XRP fell in lockstep with a broader risk-off wave that drove Bitcoin to its lowest level in 21 months, deepening pressure across the altcoin market. The leading token dropped to around $60,700, while Ethereum lost about 3.1% to $1,610 and XRP itself slid roughly 3.1% to $1.07, briefly threatening to break below $1 for the first time since shortly after the 2024 U.S. election. Dogecoin sank to its weakest levels since late 2023. Analysts tied the weakness to a sharp pullback in semiconductor and AI equities, which dragged on an already depressed digital-asset market and pushed sentiment deeper into bear market territory.

On its own chart, XRP lost the $1.0850 support during the latest sell-off and failed to reclaim it, leaving the token pinned near the lower end of its June trading range. The decisive break came as volume surged to more than 117 million tokens, driving price through support before a thin rebound carried it back toward $1.07. Buyers are still defending the $1.05 to $1.07 band, but each failed bounce brings the psychological $1 level into sharper focus. Traders say bulls must reclaim $1.10 to argue the breakdown was merely a shakeout rather than the start of a deeper leg lower.

A widening gap between network usage and price has come into focus as XRP trades down roughly 50% over the past year. On-chain data shows liquidity locked in the network's automated market maker pools has more than tripled in recent months even as the token slid about 22% over a two-month stretch. Much of that fresh capital traces back to RLUSD, which is deepening the pools where XRP changes hands without lifting demand for the token itself. The divergence suggests the roughly $785 million flowing through the ecosystem is fuelling activity and trading depth rather than translating into upward price pressure.

A long-running community debate over supply has reignited after legal commentator Bill Morgan urged Ripple to release escrowed tokens at a faster pace. Roughly 32.74 billion XRP remain locked in the programmatic escrow, which frees one billion tokens to the company on the first day of each month before Ripple decides how much to recirculate and how much to re-lock. Morgan argued that returning a smaller portion each cycle would push XRP toward full circulation sooner and strip away uncertainty around distribution. Some estimates suggest the current pace could take close to nine years to fully release, though the figure shifts month to month with Ripple's treasury needs.

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite scoring engine rates the $1.1044 resistance at 74/100, the strongest overhead level, built on a confluence of the Fibonacci 0.114 retracement and the R3 pivot, while the $1.0341 support scores 68/100 on ATR Lower and the prior-day low. Derivatives positioning is conflicted: the long/short account ratio sits at 3.02, with 75.1% of accounts long even as funding turns slightly negative at -0.0017% and open interest holds near $709 million — a crowded-long setup vulnerable to further flushing. With RSI at 35.62, a bearish MACD and the Fear & Greed Index at an extreme-fear reading of 12, a reclaim of $1.10 would open the path toward $1.16; losing the $1.0341 floor invalidates the bullish case and exposes the $0.91 zone.