The U.S. Congress is moving decisively to restrict the development of a Federal Reserve-issued Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). A letter from Representative Michael Cloud, signed by 14 representatives, urges congressional leaders to strengthen permanent restrictions within the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This builds on the previously House-passed H.R.1919, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. Representative Ralph Norman confirmed the push, stating, "I’m proud to sign onto a letter urging House and Senate leadership to permanently ban a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Americans deserve financial freedom, not government-controlled money."
This political resistance contrasts with global trends, where roughly 137 jurisdictions are exploring digital currencies and 49 have active pilot programs. The U.S. stance is increasingly seen as favoring private blockchain infrastructure for digital dollars.
Concurrently, activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is surging. Daily transaction activity for Ripple's XRP has recovered to an average of roughly 2.5 million, signaling renewed network engagement. Tokenization is expanding rapidly, with Represented Asset Value reaching about $1.49 billion and Real-World Asset (RWA) transfer volumes surging 1,282% over the past 30 days to $139.85 million.
A key driver of this growth is the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin. Its market capitalization on XRPL has skyrocketed from $235 million at the end of 2025 to nearly $1.52 billion, representing about 83% of the ledger's stablecoin supply. Last week, the RLUSD Treasury conducted its largest mint to date, creating 69 million tokens, which were transferred to the Gemini exchange. RLUSD is a regulated, 1:1 dollar-pegged asset backed by deposits and U.S. Treasuries.
Ripple is actively expanding its ecosystem through partnerships with Securosys for hardware security, Figment for staking services, and Aviva Investors to digitize traditional funds on XRPL. Furthermore, Ripple has announced plans to extend RLUSD to Ethereum layer-2 solutions like Optimism, Base, and others via the Wormhole protocol in the coming year.
Industry figures like Panos Mekras, CEO of Anodos Finance, highlight the potential, noting the XRP Ledger sits on "a mountain of untapped economic energy" with billions in idle XRP and accelerating RLUSD liquidity, positioning it to bridge digital assets into daily global economic use.
