Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has reaffirmed XRP’s central place in the company’s strategy, stressing that the rollout of its stablecoin is meant to reinforce, rather than replace, the token’s role as Ripple’s guiding focus.

In an interview published on Nov. 4, Garlinghouse addressed the attention surrounding Ripple USD (RLUSD), the company’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. “That wasn’t intended to take away from what we call internally our north star,” he said. “We only want to do things that are good for XRP.”

The executive framed RLUSD’s development as serving that objective, explaining that Ripple wants more payments flowing through Ripple. The asset used for those transactions would depend on the payment corridor and currency pair involved, while Ripple aims to keep customers satisfied with the experience.

The remarks extended an XRP-centered business strategy he laid out in February, when he called XRP the north star for Ripple and linked the company’s payments, prime brokerage, treasury, custody, and RLUSD operations to the crypto asset’s development. At XRP Community Day, he identified utility, trust, and liquidity as priorities across those businesses.

RLUSD Expansion Supports the Payments Strategy

In the Nov. 4 video, Garlinghouse said that about half of all RLUSD was issued on the XRP Ledger, the blockchain where XRP operates. “Our goal is drive as much liquidity, drive as much trust and utility through XRP as possible,” he stated.

Ripple has described its institutional stablecoin applications as including payments, settlement, and treasury flows. According to the company, RLUSD is backed one-to-one by cash deposits, U.S. Treasuries, and cash equivalents.

For customers settling dollar-denominated obligations, RLUSD offers a dollar-pegged payment asset whose value is designed to remain stable, while XRP’s price is determined by the market. That distinction allows businesses to transfer a dollar balance while keeping the amount owed and paid expressed in the same currency.

In separate comments on X on Nov. 3, Garlinghouse addressed RLUSD’s relationship with XRP by identifying other stablecoins as RLUSD’s competitors, and expressed a preference for stablecoin use cases running on the XRP Ledger.

Ripple Links Business Integration to XRP Utility

Following $2.5 billion in acquisitions in 2025, Garlinghouse described 2026 as a period of integration. He pointed to growth in the treasury business and opportunities to move traditional payment activity onchain. In prime brokerage, he estimated that roughly 20% of the business was already digital and said he wanted that share to increase. Together with the share of RLUSD issued on the XRP Ledger, those figures provide concrete reference points for tracking the integration he outlined through 2026.

His five-year institutional outlook for XRP similarly connected the token with Ripple’s expansion beyond payments. In a separate video from Swell, Ripple’s annual conference, shared on Oct. 28, Garlinghouse envisioned XRP developing as institutional financial infrastructure, saying he favored using it where it suited customer transactions and would prefer a small share of that activity over none.

The commitment extends beyond Ripple as well. At Anodos Finance, a developer of XRP Ledger trading and wallet tools, XRP treasury holdings and team payments reflect a similar approach. Co-founder and CEO Panos Mekras stated on May 31 that the company has bought XRP for its treasury, held the asset, and paid its team with it since 2023. He described XRP’s use on the XRP Ledger, Solana, which supports decentralized applications, and Flare, which connects applications with external data.

This story originally appeared on Bitcoin.com News.