Ripple CTO Emeritus Explains RLUSD Use Case, Freeze and Clawback Feature

In a recent tweet, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz highlights Ripple USD stablecoin’s utility in settlement in response to a user who asked if RLUSD can be a neutral bridge as XRP does.

Schwartz didn’t give a direct answer, replying “Yes and No” and went on to explain his perspective. According to the Ripple CTO Emeritus, RLUSD can be used as a bridge, but it is not a neutral one because it is tied to Ripple, which can freeze it and claw it back, and to the United States (whose courts can order Ripple to do things).

XRP represents a neutral, decentralized bridge asset intended for value transfer. RLUSD, on the other hand, is a fiat-pegged stablecoin intended to bring price stability to Ripple’s growing payment solutions.

While RLUSD is seeing increasing use cases as a payment and settlement instrument, it also deepens XRP’s role as the bridge asset in these flows.

RLUSD allows institutions to facilitate instant settlement of cross-border payments, access liquidity for remittance and treasury operations, integrate with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and reliably bridge between traditional fiat currencies and the crypto ecosystem.

RLUSD is fully integrated into Ripple Payments, allowing Ripple to utilize it to facilitate global payments on behalf of its enterprise customers.

Freeze and clawback features

The freeze feature mentioned by the Ripple CTO emeritus lets token issuers prevent misuse by frozen account holders. It ensures that flagged addresses cannot send or receive tokens until their trust line is unfrozen, allowing issuers to comply with sanctions and other regulatory requirements.

Clawback allows an issuer to reclaim tokens from users’ wallets under certain conditions.

Ripple prepares post-quantum readiness on XRPL

Ripple eyes post-quantum readiness by 2028 with a multi-phase roadmap introduced. This approach begins with active testing of quantum-resistant cryptography and a hybrid rollout that will run alongside existing systems before scaling.

Ripple is collaborating with Project Eleven in this regard to accelerate development, including validator testing and early custody prototypes.