Ripple USD ($RLUSD) now tops the chart for short-term volume growth on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), outpacing Ethena's $USDe. RWA Foundation, citing Token Terminal data, shows $RLUSD's DEX trading volume jumped by $127.4 million over the past seven days.

$USDe, the synthetic dollar issued by Ethena, has a bigger market cap of $4.97 billion at press time. Its DEX volume grew by $71.4 million, giving $RLUSD a $56 million lead for the week.

Other major DeFi stablecoins, Usual's USD0 and Aave's GHO among them, stayed below $20 million.

Stablecoins ranked by DEX volume over the past 7 days, Source: RWA Foundation / Token Terminal

Ethena offers roughly 5% yield through sUSDe staking. According to Ethena's documentation, the main risk of its delta-neutral model, which relies on short positions in perpetual futures, is prolonged negative funding rates.

$USDe supply peaked above $14 billion in 2025. Ethena's fee switch and ENA buybacks are set to start only once the 14-day average $USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion.

What drove $RLUSD's growth

$RLUSD is issued under the supervision of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and backed 100% by cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries, with monthly attestations of its reserves.

BNY acts as the custodian of $RLUSD reserves.

In late October, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) gave final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank. The bank will manage $RLUSD reserves under federal oversight.

Besides it, $RLUSD is available in Spark's Stablecoin FX pool on Uniswap v4, which lets corporate players make multi-million-dollar swaps.

According to RWA Foundation, about 92% of $RLUSD turnover on the $XRP Ledger (XRPL) runs through direct pairs with $XRP.

Ripple also expanded its partnership with Robinhood. According to the companies, Bitstamp will use $RLUSD on the $XRP Ledger for settlement, while Robinhood plans to offer $RLUSD to its retail customers by the end of the year.

At the same time, Coinbase added $RLUSD to Coinbase Prime, Coinbase Exchange and its retail app, with 1:1 USD conversion on the $XRP Ledger, Ethereum and Base.

At press time, $RLUSD's market cap stands at $2.69 billion, roughly half $USDe's size. The stablecoin started 2026 at about $1.28 billion.