Ripple Slashes RLUSD Supply by $128 Million in Major End-of-Quarter Settlement

A series of large transactions in Ripple’s treasury was recorded at the end of March and, accordingly, Q1 of 2026. Within a few hours, a total of about 128 million RLUSD tokens were removed from circulation, equivalent to the same amount in U.S. dollars. Data from Etherscan confirms five consecutive burn transactions, the largest of which amounted to 79 million RLUSD.

What $49 million RLUSD supply drop tells us about institutional demand

As a result, these actions led to a local reduction in the market supply of the stablecoin, which Ripple is actively promoting as a regulated alternative to market leaders USDT and USDC. In the stablecoin industry, burning assets is not a sign of crisis. It is rather a standard operational procedure reflecting the redemption process. 

Large holders, banks or market makers return digital tokens to the issuer. Ripple, in turn, pays counterparties the equivalent amount in U.S. dollars from its reserve accounts. To maintain the one-to-one peg, the corresponding tokens are removed from circulation.

Nevertheless, such burns, driven by these redemptions, lead to a reduction in RLUSD’s market capitalization. At the moment, according to data from CoinMarketCap, Ripple USD’s capitalization has already fallen below $1.4 billion, placing it ninth among the largest dollar-backed stablecoins by market capitalization.

The reason why such a large burn of 128 million occurred on March 31 is also not a mystery. Most likely, an institutional investor is closing positions and withdrawing a portion of the liquidity into fiat for reporting purposes, temporarily reducing the supply of RLUSD on Ethereum and XRP Ledger.

These burns should not be perceived as fear-driven actions. Rather, they signal the maturity of RLUSD as a stablecoin product. The issuer’s ability to seamlessly redeem and burn tens of millions of dollars worth of assets in a single day confirms strong liquidity and the reliability of Ripple’s reserve mechanisms. Therefore, market fluctuations in supply within the range of 3-5% can be considered normal for assets of this class.