Ripple MiCA Approval Moves RLUSD, XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) Not Focus, in Europe Payments Push

LUXEMBOURG, June 28, 2026, 17:08 (CEST)

• Ripple’s approval as a Luxembourg CASP is preliminary and needs to meet final conditions.
• ESMA’s register got its latest update June 26. An independent tracker showed 244 licensed CASPs, with eight of those in Luxembourg.
• RLUSD’s global supply dropped in the last 30 days, but XRPL stablecoin value is up.
• XRP held around $1.05. Investors want evidence of ledger flow, not only license headlines.

Ripple’s preliminary EU crypto license gives investors a new question. Will regulated use of Ripple USD, or RLUSD, actually drive payments onto the XRP Ledger, or does it just end up benefiting Ripple, the company, more?

Motley Fool put it straight for token holders: Ripple owns the license, but XRP is tied to XRPL activity, with only small fee burns and account reserves connecting them. That’s the gap investors are faced with now.

Ripple said June 23 it got a Green Light Letter from Luxembourg’s CSSF for a MiCA crypto-asset service provider license, with some final conditions. If it gets full approval, Ripple can offer regulated cryptoasset services in 30 EEA countries and merge the license with its EU electronic money institution approval for a single regulated payments platform.

Ripple is seeing demand picking up in the UK and Europe, according to Cassie Craddock, the company’s managing director for the region. Matthew Osborne, head of policy for the UK and Europe, described Luxembourg as Ripple’s “natural regulatory home.” Ripple said its payments platform has handled more than $100 billion and is live in over 60 markets. Ripple

Tough deadline ahead. ESMA said MiCA’s transitional period ends July 1, 2026. Firms dealing with EU clients without a MiCA license after that break EU law, ESMA said. It also advised clients to check its interim MiCA register for listed providers.

Luxembourg could open up a passporting path for Ripple if it gets final sign-off. The CSSF says crypto asset service providers (CASPs) it supervises can operate in other EU and EEA countries, provided they notify authorities under freedom-of-services or establishment regulations.

Licensed crypto providers remain limited. ESMA’s interim MiCA register got its latest update on June 26 and will be updated weekly. According to CASP Tracker, which pulls from ESMA’s data, there are 244 licensed firms, 25 national regulators, and eight entries from Luxembourg.

XRP hovered around $1.05 in the last 24 hours, giving it a market cap near $65.5 billion and volume at about $1.09 billion. The token is still down 71.1% from its July 2025 peak.

Stablecoin figures look different. DefiLlama put RLUSD’s market value around $1.57 billion, off 3.56% in the last week and down 9.09% over 30 days.

XRPL stablecoin value reached $856.52 million, rising 9.21% in the past week and up 20.52% from 30 days ago. RLUSD made up 94.63% of the total, so most of the growth sits there, a key number for XRP holders.

Ripple is launching RLUSD on XRPL and Ethereum, saying the token is backed by separate reserves in cash and cash equivalents. The company says RLUSD can be redeemed 1:1 for U.S. dollars. But whether users can get RLUSD depends on where they are—an EU license could affect who gets access more than the token itself at launch.

Direct token channel liquidity is still thin. XRPL documents say every standard transaction burns 0.00001 XRP, with the fee not paid out. Reserve requirements also use XRP, but the base account reserve dropped to 1 XRP in 2024.

Ripple might get regulated distribution ahead of any real demand for XRP, investors say. The key data to watch next is if new RLUSD supply and payments show up on XRPL after final CSSF sign-off.

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