Moody's assigned Ripple USD (RLUSD) an A2 long-term deposit rating and a P-1 short-term deposit rating on Tuesday. Ripple subsidiary Standard Custody & Trust Company issues the dollar-backed stablecoin. A2 ranks sixth among Moody's long-term grades, while P-1 is the agency's highest short-term grade. Moody's said the issuer requested the ratings.
Moody's attributed the ratings to the quality of RLUSD's reserves, primarily Treasury bills, other short-term U.S. government assets and cash. Moody's said custodian BNY holds most of the reserves. The reserve coverage target is 103% of tokens in circulation. Eligible institutional holders can exchange RLUSD for dollars at par within two business days.
However, Moody's said Standard Custody is not bankruptcy-remote and RLUSD holders currently have no direct ownership interest in the reserves. Moody's said the GENIUS Act will keep required reserves outside an issuer's bankruptcy estate. The U.S. stablecoin law is scheduled to take effect in 2027.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank a day before the ratings announcement. Ripple National Trust Bank will administer RLUSD's reserves and serve as collateral trustee. Standard Custody will remain RLUSD's issuer under the supervision of the New York Department of Financial Services. The arrangement places RLUSD under state and federal supervision.
RLUSD launched in December 2024 on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. CoinGecko puts RLUSD's market capitalization at about $2.6 billion, a small portion of the roughly $300 billion stablecoin market. Ripple has marketed RLUSD to institutions rather than retail traders.
Standard Chartered started providing institutional custody for RLUSD through the bank's Dubai branch earlier this month. Standard Chartered said the bank was developing a "collateral mirroring" arrangement with Ripple and LMAX Group. The proposed arrangement would allow clients to pledge RLUSD as trading collateral while keeping the stablecoin on the bank's books.
Ripple partnered with Mastercard, WebBank and Gemini in November 2025 to examine RLUSD settlement of fiat transactions for the Gemini Credit Card. The proposed use would operate on the XRP Ledger and requires regulatory approvals. DefiLlama data showed that RLUSD had recently exceeded a $1 billion market capitalization at that time, ranking the token as the 11th-largest stablecoin.