More than 2 billion people around the world do not have access to safe water at home. Water.org, a non-profit organization co-founded by actor Matt Damon and engineer Gary White, launched the Get Blue campaign to draw attention to this humanitarian problem. According to the announcement made on Tuesday, Ripple also joined the founding partners supporting this initiative.
New partnership in Water.org campaign
San Francisco-based blockchain company Ripple, along with Water.org, is part of the coalition that includes large companies such as Amazon and Gap. The campaign aims to create resources for access to safe water and basic infrastructure by collecting funds through company sales and direct donations.
Water.org is known as a non-governmental organization that develops financing models so that low-income households can access water and sanitation services under more affordable conditions. The basis of the initiative is the WaterCredit model, which the organization has used before.
Mini dictionary: WaterCredit is used as a financing model that provides low-cost small loans for access to basic services such as water and sanitation. This structure, unlike classical donation-based aid, allows households to finance the infrastructure they need in installments.
Ripple plans to contribute to the scaling of transactions by using the US dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD to transfer funds to Water.org’s microfinance partners operating in emerging markets.
Cross-border fund transfer with RLUSD
The highlight of the announcement was that Ripple launched its stablecoin RLUSD, which is indexed to the US dollar, in this process. The company stated that Water.org will use RLUSD to transfer funds to microfinance partners working in developing countries. In the text, it was pointed out that there is a concrete need to increase the transaction volume in these markets.
It was also emphasized that this use is not a model that directly aims to solve industrial water consumption. As the founders admit, the initiative focuses on the needs of communities that have difficulty accessing safe water, rather than the industrial dimension of the problem.
Water consumption pressure in the age of artificial intelligence
Direct water consumption by the nation’s data centers is expected to rise to 73 billion gallons by 2028, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. It is stated that the main reason for this increase is artificial intelligence-driven demand. Although the Get Blue campaign does not directly target this industrial pressure, it aims to find solutions to the humanitarian side of the crisis with the support of the same companies.
From Ripple’s perspective, this step is not the first use of RLUSD in projects focused on social impact and economic development. In September 2025, the company donated $15 million RLUSD to the Accion Opportunity Fund to support American entrepreneurs with limited access to services.
Ripple also recently pledged a total of $25 million worth of cryptocurrency to DonorsChoose and Teach For America. With the latest development, it appears that the company has begun to take a more visible role in stablecoin-based aid and development initiatives.
