Ripple (XRP) is strengthening its global foothold by fully expanding its stablecoin 'RLUSD' business in the Turkish market. According to the overseas virtual asset media outlet Coingape, the market capitalization of RLUSD surpassed $1.8 billion on Tuesday local time, joining the ranks of the top 10 stablecoins.

Ripple officially announced on June 2 (local time) that it will provide RLUSD in Turkey through three new partners (BiLira, Bitexen, Bitlo). Through this partnership, traditional financial institutions can now easily access RLUSD, and Ripple has added on-chain features to its fund management system to enhance the utility of XRP and RLUSD.

Jack McDonald, Senior Vice President of Ripple's Stablecoin division, stated, "RLUSD acts as an important bridge in payments, tokenization, and collateral management, and is rapidly gaining attention in financial use cases." He further emphasized that with corporate demand expanding globally, this launch in Turkey will serve as a significant milestone for expansion.

In Turkey, amid high inflation rates and the depreciation of the Lira, virtual assets are widely used as a means of asset preservation and a hedge against volatility. Citing Chainalysis data, Turkey is considered a major market with an annual virtual asset trading volume reaching approximately $200 billion.

Backed 1:1 by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. Treasury bonds, and cash equivalents, RLUSD is issued on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, offering fast and affordable payments. It is currently traded on major global exchanges including Binance, Bitso, Bitstamp, Bybit, Gemini, Kraken, LMAX, and OKX.

Meanwhile, Ripple selected Istanbul Technical University (ITU) as a new partner for the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI). Through this partnership, stablecoin funds will be raised to support advanced blockchain research and graduate scholarships, and the establishment of an XRP Ledger validator on the university campus will also be pursued.

Coingape reported that despite various positive factors such as Kalshi's application to list XRP futures, the price of XRP traded sideways around $1.26. The 24-hour high and low were $1.31 and $1.26, respectively, while trading volume increased by 55% during the same period.

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