How Uphold's RLUSD Earn works, powered by Upshift

Uphold customers can now move RLUSD into Earn inside the Uphold app. Upshift runs the vault underneath, which lends the RLUSD in Sentora-curated Morpho lending markets to borrowers who post more collateral than they borrow.

Uphold launched Earn for RLUSD on 29 October 2026, and Upshift runs the stablecoin vault behind it. Uphold customers in most US states can move RLUSD, Ripple's US dollar stablecoin, into Earn from the Uphold mobile app and request a withdrawal at any time. The vault lends that RLUSD in Morpho lending markets curated by Sentora. Borrowers there post collateral and pay interest, which flows back to Earn customers.

What do Uphold customers see when they use RLUSD Earn?

Earn sits inside the Uphold app, next to a customer's RLUSD balance. A customer picks an amount and confirms it, and the RLUSD moves from their Uphold wallet into the vault, after which the app shows the Earn balance and what it has earned so far.

Uphold signs the onchain transactions for each customer and holds the keys. Earn is only available through the Uphold app, and the vault has no public deposit link. Returns are variable because they track what borrowers pay on Morpho, and they're never guaranteed.

Where does RLUSD go after an Uphold customer taps Earn?

RLUSD passes through three layers on its way to a borrower, and the interest comes back up the same way:

1. A customer moves RLUSD into Earn in the Uphold app.
2. The RLUSD goes into the Upshift vault, which records the customer's share of the pool.
3. The Upshift vault supplies the RLUSD to isolated Morpho lending markets, each with one type of collateral, which Sentora selects and caps.
4. Borrowers pay interest, which grows the vault's position and each customer's Earn balance with it.

A withdrawal runs the same path in reverse, from the Morpho markets back to the customer's Uphold balance. The Upshift vault tracks every customer's share, and the Morpho markets it lends into are public on Morpho's app.

Where does the yield on Uphold's RLUSD Earn come from?

The yield on RLUSD Earn comes from interest that borrowers pay on Morpho. Each Morpho market pairs one collateral asset with one loan asset, and its terms are fixed when the market is created. A borrower posts collateral, such as tokenized bitcoin or staked ETH, and borrows RLUSD against it up to a set limit, and the rate that borrower pays climbs when a larger share of the supplied RLUSD is out on loan and drops again when demand cools.

It works a lot like a car loan, where the lender can take the car if the payments stop. Here, every RLUSD loan is backed by crypto collateral valued above the loan.

On 29 October 2026 these markets lent mainly against kBTC, weETH, USDe, FXRP and cbBTC. Each market's liquidation threshold sat between 77% and 91.5% of the collateral's value. If a loan crosses that line, anyone can liquidate it by repaying part of the debt in exchange for a discounted slice of the collateral. Each market is isolated, which keeps a problem in one market from spreading into the others.

Sentora curates the lending. It picks which markets receive RLUSD and caps how much each one can take. Morpho's case study on Sentora says it curates over $2B in assets using more than 1,000 risk models. Upshift runs the vault, and Sentora runs the strategy. For a wider view of the sources, see where stablecoin yield comes from.

How do withdrawals from Uphold Earn work?

Customers can request a withdrawal from Earn at any time in the Uphold app. The Upshift vault then pulls the matching RLUSD out of Morpho markets with unborrowed liquidity. Upshift processes vault redemptions daily, and the RLUSD returns to the customer's Uphold balance once the redemption settles.

Timing depends on how much RLUSD is out on loan. When borrowers have taken most of a market's supply, the vault draws from other markets or waits for repayments. Morpho's rate model also raises borrowing costs steeply at high usage, which pushes borrowers to repay.

Who does what behind Uphold Earn

Upshift is onchain yield infrastructure that lets fintechs and asset managers offer yield inside their own products. Partners start with 24/7 tokenized money market funds and add higher-yield strategies, from lending to basis trades, on the same integration. Upshift's contracts have been through 11 smart contract audits by 6 independent firms, and it runs vaults on 30+ chains for more than 66,000 users (as of September 2026).

RLUSD Earn is the first of several vaults Upshift will run for Uphold. It went live a day after Ethena Pay opened Earn+ on Upshift, where Steakhouse Financial runs the strategy. Both apps use the same vault-as-a-service setup, which neobanks and fintechs use to offer stablecoin yield under their own name.

What are the risks of RLUSD Earn on Uphold?

Lending RLUSD carries more risk than holding it on Uphold. The main ones are:

• Collateral and liquidation risk. A fast drop in a collateral asset's price can outrun liquidations and leave bad debt in that market.
• Liquidity. Withdrawals can take longer when most of the RLUSD is out on loan.
• Smart contract risk across the Upshift vault, Morpho and RLUSD itself.
• Variable returns. The rate follows borrowing demand and can fall at any time.

Always make sure to do your own research and be aware of the above and any other risks before depositing.

Frequently asked questions

Where is RLUSD Earn on Uphold available?

Uphold offers it to customers in most US states, inside the Uphold mobile app. The vault has no public deposit page of its own.

What backs RLUSD?

Ripple says RLUSD is backed 1:1 by cash, US Treasuries and government money market funds. It's issued by a New York trust company supervised by NYDFS, and an independent accounting firm attests to the reserves every month.

Is RLUSD Earn the same as Uphold's interest on USD cash?

They're separate products. RLUSD in Earn leaves the customer's Uphold wallet for an onchain vault and earns from Morpho borrowers, and FDIC insurance doesn't cover it.

Can I see where the RLUSD is lent?

Yes. The Morpho markets are public on Morpho's app, which lists each market with its collateral and the RLUSD it holds.