On Wednesday, blockchain payment giant Ripple announced a major $500 million investment, which elevated its valuation to $40 billion. The funding came from a consortium of major institutions, including Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities affiliates, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace. Ripple’s Strategic Expansion Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, emphasized that this investment underscores the company’s momentum and reinforces the market opportunities they are “aggressively” pursuing. He noted: We started in 2012 with one use case—payments—and have since expanded into custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage, and corporate treasury, leveraging digital assets like XRP. Today, Ripple stands as the partner for institutions looking to access crypto and blockchain. Ripple also highlighted its rapid growth, having completed six acquisitions in just over two years, including two valued at over $1 billion. These strategic moves have allowed the company to expand its influence across payments, custody, and stablecoins while venturing into new markets. RLUSD Surpasses $1 Billion Market Cap This announcement follows Ripple’s recent launch of its digital asset spot prime brokerage services for the American market, which enables US-based institutional clients to conduct over-the-counter (OTC) spot transactions across various digital assets, including XRP and the firm’s stablecoin, RLUSD. Notably, RLUSD achieved a market cap exceeding $1 billion in under a year since its launch. Additionally, Ripple has completed the acquisition of Hidden Road, now rebranded as Ripple Prime, where RLUSD is already being utilized as collateral. Since the acquisition was announced, client collateral has doubled, and the average daily transaction volume has soared to more than 60 million, effectively tripling the business’s size. At the time of writing, XRP’s valuation increased following the announcement. It is currently trading at $2.27, which is a 4% surge within the last 24 hours. However, the altcoin has lost nearly 14% over the past week due to uncertainty and volatility affecting crypto prices. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
