Ripple participated in the Series E investment round of Flutterwave, one of Africa’s leading payment companies, at a valuation of $ 3.2 billion. However, the payment asset used in the agreement was the RLUSD stablecoin, not XRP. It was reported that the collaboration covers 34 African countries, and Flutterwave has managed more than 1 billion transactions and a payment volume of over 50 billion dollars to date.
RLUSD stood out in payment infrastructure
It was stated that the integration between the parties will be established through a single API. Thanks to this structure, Flutterwave’s payment gateways will be connected to the Ripple Payments network. It was stated that the goal is to reduce delays and high costs caused by currency conversion, especially in cross-border transactions.
Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola said the current banking system has largely reached its limit. According to Agboola, businesses now need a programmable money infrastructure that can work around the clock, and this model is being tested by both sellers and the Send App.
Olugbenga Agboola stated that the traditional banking infrastructure has largely exhausted its potential, and companies now need programmable money systems that work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
XRP Ledger positioned as technical backbone
In this financial structure, the distribution of duties was clearly drawn. Dollar-pegged RLUSD is directly integrated into cross-border payment channels as the underlying payment asset, while XRP Ledger serves as the technical infrastructure used for faster settlement.
According to the framework highlighted in the news, large-scale companies continue to prioritize price stability in billion-dollar transactions. Stablecoins allow companies to maintain profit margins more predictably because they limit exchange rate volatility. In contrast, freely priced crypto assets such as XRP appear to be evaluated more cautiously due to volatility and regulatory uncertainty.
Mini dictionary: RLUSD is a stablecoin developed by Ripple and pegged to the US dollar. XRP Ledger refers to the blockchain infrastructure where transactions are recorded and reconciliation is achieved; payment presence and network infrastructure are not the same thing.
A similar preference was also seen in the Mastercard collaboration.
It was reported that a similar approach was seen in Ripple’s collaboration with Mastercard in the Agent Pay project. It was stated that in the project in question, the international payment network benefited from the XRP Ledger infrastructure, but chose RLUSD as the default payment asset to limit the open crypto market risk.
However, Ripple management does not share the view that XRP remains in the background. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse continues to describe XRP as the “north star” of the ecosystem. According to Garlinghouse, the growth in XRP Ledger-based transaction traffic also supports the overall liquidity of the network.
CLARITY Act emphasis on the regulatory side
According to the news, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the company’s legal affairs manager Stuart Alderoty are lobbying intensively for the CLARITY Act, which aims to give official legal status to digital assets in the USA. It is evaluated that this regulation can reduce the crypto-related hesitations of large institutions such as Mastercard and Flutterwave and pave the way for institutional capital.
