Crypto group Ripple announced a $500 million investment at a $40 billion valuation from institutional investors led by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group, affiliates of Citadel Securities, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace. The investment follows Ripple’s strongest year to date and its recent $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation.
“This investment reflects both Ripple’s incredible momentum, and further validation of the market opportunity we’re aggressively pursuing by some of the most trusted financial institutions in the world,” said Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, in a statement. “We started in 2012 with one use case – payments – and have expanded that success 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.”
In just over two years, Ripple completed six acquisitions, including two valued at over $1 billion, expanding its footprint across payments, custody, and stablecoins, while entering new markets in prime brokerage and treasury management.
Payments have quickly become one of the most practical and scalable applications of crypto. Earlier this year, the company acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Rail, adding capabilities to Ripple Payments as a full-service cross-border platform, using Ripple USD (RLUSD) and XRP, to make global money movement faster and more efficient for businesses. With 75 regulatory licenses, Ripple can move money on behalf of its customers, cutting out intermediaries, and simplifying liquidity management and on-and-off ramps. Total Ripple Payments volumes have now surpassed $95 billion, a clear sign of growing demand and real-world utility.
In a post-GENIUS Act world, institutions are increasingly turning to trusted stablecoins like RLUSD for use cases such as treasury payments and collateral – a key reason why Ripple acquired GTreasury in October. GTreasury manages trillions of dollars of volume for its Fortune 500 customers who are keen to use stablecoins and digital assets to move money 24/7/365, and put their idle capital to work.
Just this week, RLUSD crossed a $1 billion market cap in less than a year since launch. Ripple also recently completed its acquisition of Hidden Road, now known as Ripple Prime, where RLUSD is already in use as collateral. Since the deal was announced, client collateral has doubled, average daily transactions have climbed to more than 60 million, and the business has tripled in size. Ripple Prime is now expanding into collateralized lending for XRP and supporting a rapidly growing base of institutions trading XRP-based products.