Here’s How High 1 XRP Could Go if RLUSD Taps Into $189T Derivatives Market

Some analysts believe XRP could benefit as Ripple’s RLUSD may soon get a chance to break into the $189 trillion derivatives market in the U.S.. 

Notably, this chance could come from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) new initiative. For context, recent reports confirmed that the CFTC, under Acting Chair Caroline Pham, has launched an initiative that targets tokenized collateral, including stablecoins, for use in derivatives markets. 

RLUSD Could Benefit from the CFTC’s New Initiative

The plan is part of the commission’s broader “crypto sprint” to improve collateral management, strengthen capital efficiency, and act on the recommendations of the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets. 

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The agency said tokenized collateral, especially payment stablecoins from licensed U.S. issuers, could improve derivatives contracts. To determine the next steps, the CFTC is taking public comments until October 20, 2025, before moving ahead with new pilot programs.

If this materializes, stablecoins, including RLUSD, could tap into the massive derivatives market. To put things into perspective, at the end of 2024, the global notional value of derivatives topped $700 trillion. 

Interestingly, the U.S. share accounted for 27%, about $189 trillion, which the CFTC oversees through its regulation of futures, swaps, and options. 

Considering this size, RLUSD could benefit if regulators allow stablecoins into the system. Moreover, with the stablecoin also clearing on the XRP Ledger, higher adoption could lift activity across the network. As a result, some analysts believe such a development could also impact XRP, which acts as the network’s gas token.

XRP Price if RLUSD Taps $189T Derivatives Market 

However, it remains unclear how much this would impact the XRP price. So, to explore that possibility, we asked Google’s AI chatbot Gemini what XRP could look like a year after such an initiative takes hold.

In response, Gemini suggested that the idea was fascinating. It explained that if RLUSD were used as collateral, even in a small slice of the $189 trillion U.S. market, the result could be massive institutional traffic on the XRP Ledger. 

According to Gemini, this kind of adoption would raise settlement activity on RLUSD, which in turn would lift XRP demand since the token covers transaction fees across the network.

Gemini also pointed out that a CFTC green light would give RLUSD regulatory credibility. This could pull traditional financial institutions into the XRPL, leading to new integrations and expanding use cases. Based on those factors, Gemini suggested that under a bullish outcome, XRP could trade between $10 and $20 within a year of RLUSD entering the U.S. derivatives market.

However, there is no guarantee that the XRP price would react this favorably to the development. As a result, investors should not make investments from these predictions.