Ripple announced two regulatory wins in the same week. RLUSD has been approved by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (JFSA) for the Japanese market and is now available through Ripple’s long-time partner SBI Group on the VCTRADE platform operated by SBI VC Trade. At the same time, Ripple said it secured a preliminary Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license in Luxembourg, giving it a path to expand services in Europe.
RLUSD launches in Japan through SBI VC Trade
Japan is widely seen as one of the stricter crypto jurisdictions. With the approval in place, RLUSD is available to both retail and institutional users on VCTRADE. According to the source material, Ripple expects the stablecoin to be used for cross-border payments and settlement, tokenization of real-world assets, and collateral management in financial transactions.
Ripple and SBI have worked together for 10 years. That long-standing relationship matters. The launch in Japan was not built on a new partnership, but on an existing channel that has already been in place for years.
Luxembourg CASP approval opens a wider European route
Ripple’s second move came in Luxembourg, where it obtained a preliminary CASP license. CASP is a regulatory status under the EU’s MiCA framework, short for Markets in Crypto-Assets. Based on the source, this approval allows Ripple to operate Ripple Payments across the 30-country European Economic Area (EEA).
Other large firms are moving on the same front. Coinbase has also secured a MiCA license through Luxembourg, while Binance withdrew its MiCA license application in Greece. Those decisions point to a European market where major exchanges and crypto firms are not taking the same regulatory path.
RLUSD remains far behind USDT and USDC by market cap
Even with the new approvals, RLUSD is still much smaller than the leading stablecoins. The source puts RLUSD’s market capitalization at $1.58 billion. By comparison, USDT stands at $186.01 billion and USDC at $73.8 billion. RLUSD is ranked #41 by overall market cap.
The gap is large. To reach the level of USDT, RLUSD would need to grow by more than 100 times. Ripple has still been adding distribution points: the Japan rollout, the Luxembourg approval, and the recent Gate.io listing, where RLUSD started trading on June 15 against USDT, BTC, ETH, and XRP.
XRP price slips during the news cycle
While Ripple’s regulatory footprint expanded, XRP moved lower. The source says the token fell by more than 2.5% in a single day and traded around $1.07, with a total market capitalization of roughly $66.69 billion.
The same report notes that broader altcoin trading has been volatile, and XRP has not been insulated from that pressure. For now, the clearer development is Ripple’s effort to build RLUSD and its payments business within regulated frameworks in Japan and Europe.