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Robinhood, the trading app with 28.6 million funded customers, is adding a digital dollar built by Ripple, the company whose founders created the XRP cryptocurrency. Ripple's RLUSD token went live Tuesday on Robinhood's own blockchain and on its Bitstamp exchange, and is expected to reach the main Robinhood app later this year, according to Ripple's announcement.
RLUSD is a stablecoin, a crypto token designed to always be worth one U.S. dollar, which lets money move across a blockchain without waiting for banks to open. It launched in December 2024, and Ripple said its market capitalization, meaning the combined value of every token in circulation, now tops $2.5 billion.
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Robinhood will also run its global treasury operations on Ripple Treasury, software that manages a company's cash, from payments to cash-flow forecasts and risk. That includes intercompany netting, which offsets what a company's own divisions owe one another so fewer payments have to move.
Ripple Prime, a prime broker that lends money and clears trades for hedge funds and other large institutions, already provides Bitstamp with lending and margin financing, meaning borrowed money for trading, across roughly 20 digital assets. Ripple paid $1.25 billion for the firm in a deal announced in April 2025, when it was still called Hidden Road.
Ripple Prime clients also get access to spot trading on Bitstamp, which means buying at the current market price, and later this year Prime will support perpetual futures there, contracts that bet on a coin's future price and never expire. Robinhood closed its purchase of Bitstamp, one of the world's longest-running crypto exchanges, in June 2025 for about $200 million, and most of the exchange's volume comes from institutions.
Robinhood will use RLUSD on the XRP Ledger, the blockchain behind XRP, for institutional settlement, the step where a large trade is finalized and paid for, across Bitstamp's institutional business.
“Utility is what moves stablecoins forward. Working with Ripple, Bitstamp and Robinhood will have access to RLUSD for institutional settlement, Ripple Treasury for our operations, and Ripple Prime for financing,” said Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto and International. “That is what a connected, global financial system looks like.”
Robinhood, which pared back its crypto listings during the SEC crackdown on Ripple and other crypto companies, added XRP for U.S. customers in November 2024. Now Ripple's software will help run Robinhood's own treasury department.
Robinhood cut about 10% of its staff in June, after revenue fell 34% in its crypto transaction business in the first quarter to $134 million. It will report its third-quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, the first report to cover a full quarter since the July 1 launch of Robinhood Chain.
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