Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD made two specific infrastructure moves this week. Integrated with cross-chain routing platform Squid, RLUSD enables single transaction swaps across 100+ blockchains and 20,000+ tokens.
Ripple has acquired a strategic stake in African payments giant Flutterwave at a Series E valuation of $3.2 billion to incorporate RLUSD and XRP Ledger into its payment rails across 34 African markets.
What started as a payments story is quickly becoming a race to build the financial operating system of the future. @Ripple has made a strategic investment in @theflutterwave as part of a Series E funding round, alongside a partnership focused on stablecoin payments… pic.twitter.com/t0JWmn864R
— Africa Fintech Summit (@AfriFintech) June 17, 2026
The fundamental problem with both movements is the same. In other words, a stablecoin is only as useful as the infrastructure that can move it. Ripple is solving this problem on two ends simultaneously: DeFi routing and real-world remittance corridors.
Despite these moves in RLUSD, XRP USD still fell -3.7% overnight, undoing most of the gains made over the past 10 days. XRP is trading at $1.16 with a daily volume of $2.21 billion.
What Squid’s RLUSD integration actually does
$XRP forms a similar pattern to the 2024 rally, which rose from $0.50 to $3.30
However… this time the 1.272 Fib extension points to $8.42.
https://t.co/60Vwj5uTCr pic.twitter.com/gfnYHLgT47
— Tom (@Tom0nChain) June 18, 2026
Squid uses an intent-based routing system. Think of this as a matchmaking layer where market makers on the destination chain use pooled liquidity to fill swap orders, rather than requiring users to manually bridge or wrap tokens.
As a result, users holding USDC on Ethereum will be able to swap to RLUSD in a single transaction without having to touch multiple interfaces or pay separate bridge fees.
RLUSD is minted natively on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. Wormhole’s Native Token Transfer (NTT) standard extends it to the Ethereum Layer 2 network, including Base, Optimism, and Unichain. Squid’s routing layer sits on top of all of that and handles paths regardless of which chain RLUSD is in at any given time.
Lauren Barta, head of stablecoin products at Ripple, said the integration addresses a core scaling constraint: “As demand for RLUSD grows, it needs to move freely between the ecosystems in which it operates.”
Squid handles that routing layer, opening up huge possibilities for payments, DeFi, and treasury use cases. Fig, the pseudonymous co-founder of Squid, said the team is also building payment widgets and SDKs that Ripple developers and partners can deploy directly.
Ripple is not a passive beneficiary here. The company participated in Squid’s $6 million funding round last month, along with North Island Ventures and Axelar co-founder Georgios Vlachos, bringing Squid’s total funding to $13.5 million, according to The Block.
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Flutterwave trading and African payments opportunities
Flutterwave has processed over 1 billion transactions worth over $50 billion across 34 African countries, making it one of the most embedded payments infrastructure providers on the continent.
The three-pronged integration plan with Ripple includes incorporating RLUSD as a payments asset in high-value payment instruments, including Flutterwave’s Send App money transfer product. Clear transactions quickly using the XRP Ledger. We will then deploy an integration API that connects Flutterwave’s national network to Ripple Payments.
The commercial logic is simple. Cross-border payments in Africa have traditionally been subject to multi-day settlement delays and higher foreign exchange margins. Combining local rail, cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers with blockchain-based payments is a direct attack on these friction points.
According to The Block, the $3.2 billion headline figure reflects Flutterwave’s valuation, not the size of Ripple’s check, as the financial terms of Ripple’s stock were not disclosed.
This is not Ripple’s first foray into the continent. In September 2025, the company made RLUSD available to African institutions through Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card, positioning these partners in the areas of cross-border payments, institutional liquidity, and treasury management, respectively.
Our contract with Flutterwave is an infrastructure layer on top of that distribution foundation. If you want to learn more about how companies are already using Ripple for cross-border payments, check out how the pattern here is consistent with the broader institutional adoption curve.
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RLUSD’s position in the stablecoin market
(Source: CoinGecko)
RLUSD will launch in December 2024 under license from the New York Department of Financial Services and is backed 1:1 by dollar deposits and short-term U.S. Treasuries.
Its market capitalization is around $1.65 billion, lagging behind Tether’s USDT’s $186.5 billion and Circle’s USDC’s $75 billion, but its growth trajectory is key. By early June 2026, RLUSD had expanded to over 40 networks and secured payment support from Mastercard on the XRP Ledger.
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For XRP holders, XRP is a native asset on the ledger, so an increase in the amount of RLUSD will directly impact the demand for XRP. Potential price increases will depend on the scale beyond pilot use as Flutterwave is deployed.
Additionally, infrastructure expansions like MetaMask’s efforts in Latin America highlight the competitive landscape for real-world payment solutions.
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The post SQUID RLUSD Consolidation, Flutterwave Valuation at $3.2 Billion: This Week’s Ripple XRP News appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
