Moody's assigns Ripple's RLUSD A2 long-term and P-1 short-term deposit ratings

Moody's has assigned Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin an A2 long-term and P-1 short-term deposit rating, covering native RLUSD issued on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. The rating weighs reserve safeguards against the risk that holders would be exposed if the issuer went bankrupt. It is the first time one of the three major credit-rating agencies has published a deposit rating on a dollar stablecoin. Reporting: The Defiant; corroboration via Coincu, Coinfomania.

What A2 and P-1 mean

Moody's scales:

The ratings apply as deposit ratings: Moody's is treating a holder's claim on redeemable RLUSD like a demand deposit at an insured institution and judging the issuer's capacity to honour redemption on short notice.

Scope and basis

• Chains covered: Native RLUSD on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. The rating does not pass through to RLUSD wrapped or bridged by third parties.
• Issuer and reserves: RLUSD is issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a New York limited-purpose trust under NYDFS supervision; reserves are reportedly held at BNY Mellon — relationships previously confirmed when BNY was named primary reserve custodian at the stablecoin's December 2024 launch.
• Basis of the rating: Moody's cites liquid reserves and redemption controls, offset by holder exposure to an issuer bankruptcy scenario. A2 (rather than higher) reflects that stablecoin holders — unlike bank depositors — have no FDIC-equivalent backstop; they sit as general creditors against the trust in a wind-down.

Numbers around RLUSD

Impact

• Precedent for the asset class. USDT and USDC have never carried a rating from one of the big three. An A2/P-1 pair gives institutional allocators a familiar framework to size exposure to a specific stablecoin against money-market funds and bank deposits.
• Treasury-use case strengthened. For corporate treasurers constrained by investment-policy statements that require rated instruments, the rating removes one of the structural blockers to holding RLUSD operationally. This dovetails with Ripple's Robinhood partnership announced the same week, in which Robinhood plans to adopt Ripple Treasury and route institutional settlements over RLUSD.
• Competitive signal. Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT) will face pressure to pursue comparable ratings. Moody's publishing a stablecoin methodology earlier in the cycle is what made the RLUSD rating possible; other issuers can now apply.

What to watch

1. Whether Circle files for a comparable Moody's/S&P/Fitch rating on USDC.
2. Any methodology refinement from Moody's: how reserve maturity profile, custodian concentration, and redemption-cap structures affect the rating.
3. Allocator adoption: large money-market and treasury desks publishing updated eligibility lists that now admit RLUSD.
4. Reaction from NYDFS and OCC: the first rated stablecoin from a NY-chartered trust creates a template OCC-chartered national trust banks (Ripple's included, as of its recent OCC approval) will want to replicate.

Context

Stablecoins have run for years on attestation reports from mid-tier audit firms rather than credit ratings. A deposit rating from Moody's is a materially different artifact: it is a published view of probability of default, scaled against the rest of the fixed-income universe. Whether other issuers follow depends less on cost than on willingness to open reserve composition and governance to the depth of review a rating process requires. The gap between RLUSD and its larger competitors on this axis just widened.