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Here are the top three news stories presented to you by U.Today.

Ripple USD (RLUSD) launch date finally revealed

After a long wait, the XRP community has been finally given the launch date of Ripple's stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD). According to the official announcement by the San Francisco-based blockchain company, the stablecoin is going to be launched today, Dec. 17. RLUSD will soon be available on major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Uphold, Bitso and MoonPay. As reported by U.Today, the much-anticipated stablecoin was approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) last week. Ripple President Monica Long wrote in her recent X post that the release of RLUSD marks "a new chapter" for both XRP Ledger and Ripple. Another top exec at Ripple, David Schwartz, cautioned against speculation regarding the stablecoin's price, emphasizing that its supply will stabilize quickly.

Updated: Ripple's official X account has just shared that RLUSD is live on global exchanges.

Satoshi about to surpass Bill Gates

In light of Bitcoin's latest price surge, Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of the flagship cryptocurrency, has emerged as the 16th richest individual globally, with an estimated net worth of $106 billion, surpassing Michael Bloomberg, cofounder of Bloomberg L.P. Thus, Satoshi is on track to potentially surpass Bill Gates in wealth. As reported by U.Today yesterday, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $106,533, with its price surging even higher at writing time — $107,616. However, the determination of Satoshi's wealth ranking remains uncertain, since it is unclear whether Satoshi is one person or a group of people. Additionally, recent data from Chainalysis indicates that Satoshi's holdings stand at approximately 1.124 million BTC, though this figure may not include all relevant wallets.

20,035,968 SHIB torched in 24 hours — What's going on?

Data from the Shibburn tracking platform shows that over the previous 24 hours, the SHIB community has removed a significant volume of SHIB tokens from circulation.  During this period, the burn rate for Shiba Inu increased by nearly 2,000%, with a total of 20,035,968 SHIB burned. The largest transaction here incinerated more than half of that amount: 11,196,225 SHIB. The second biggest transfer after it burned 8,804,670 SHIB. Weekly burn statistics show an alarming decrease of 92.69%, with 175,061,914 SHIB burned in total over the past week compared to daily figures. Despite Bitcoin's recent rise to an all-time high, the price of Shiba Inu remained almost unaffected. At the moment of writing, the SHIB token is changing hands at $0.00002723, up 1.51% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap.