Ripple Expands Reach with XRP and RLUSD to Be Accepted by 20 Million AEON Merchants

• AEON has teamed up with Ripple to bring XRP and RLUSD into its everyday payment system.
• The next time you’re picking up a coffee at Starbucks or settling the bill at Pizza Hut, you’ll be able to pay with your crypto.

Ripple Labs has teamed up with AEON, a Web3 mobile payments platform, in a move that brings XRP and Ripple USD (RLUSD) closer to everyday use. Thanks to this partnership, people can now spend these digital assets at over 20 million merchants across Southeast Asia through AEON Pay.

The platform is already supported by popular wallets like Bitget Wallet and TokenPocket, making it easier than ever to pay with crypto. It’s a big step forward, not just for Ripple, but for turning digital assets into something you can actually use in the real world.

According to the press release, AEON Pay users can use XRP and RLUSD for everyday purchases, from grabbing coffee and fast food at Starbucks, McDonald’s, or Pizza Hut, to shopping at retailers like UNIQLO, crypto is becoming just as spendable as cash. There’s more. The partnership plans to extend into Africa, Latin America, and other emerging markets to position Ripple’s ecosystem as a global payment backbone.

Launched in December 2024, RLUSD is Ripple’s fully collateralized, enterprise-grade USD-backed stablecoin, built for compliance and scalability. RLUSD is already boasting a $428 million market cap and has surpassed $100 billion in trading volume.

RLUSD is now listed on Kraken, with integrations across LMAX Digital, Bitstamp, and Bullish. The result? This gives it ground to compete with heavyweight stablecoins like USDC, which currently has a $61 billion market cap, and Tether, which has $156 billion.

Built for Cross‑Border Payments

RLUSD is also fully integrated into Ripple Payments, the company’s flagship platform for cross-border transactions. This allows for faster, cheaper, and more efficient international transfers and treasury operations, and several payment service providers, such as BKK Forex and iSend, have already started using RLUSD to streamline their global flows.

On the regulatory side, Ripple has been steadily building its compliance foundation. The company now holds over 60 money transmitter licenses in the U.S., including in major financial hubs like New York and Texas. These licenses allow Ripple to offer legally compliant cross-border services both domestically and internationally, essential infrastructure for scaling global payment solutions.

In January, Ripple also announced a collaboration with Chainlink to power RLUSD with reliable on-chain price feeds. This move makes it easier to integrate RLUSD across DeFi platforms, where accurate pricing is essential for things like lending, trading, and collateral management. As a result, RLUSD has already landed listings on Euler Finance and Aave, with lending caps set at $25 million and $50 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, XRP continues to hover within a tight range between $2.00 and $2.20. According to data from CoinGlass, the derivatives trading volume decreased slightly by 0.55% to $4.16 billion, while open interest, which reflects the total value of outstanding, unsettled contracts, increased by 5.10% to $4.14 billion.

Currently, XRP is priced at $2.17. As reported by CNF, if the token manages to break above the $2.30 mark, it could set the stage for a push toward the next resistance level at $2.47.

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