According to Financial Times News, Ripple has raised $500 million from investors including Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group at a $40 billion valuation. The funding round also included hedge funds Brevan Howard and Marshall Wace plus crypto investors Pantera Capital and Galaxy Digital. Ripple runs its own stablecoin RLUSD with $1 billion nominal value and XRP cryptocurrency circulating at $133 billion. The company recently offered to buy $1 billion of its shares from employees and investors at this same valuation. This comes as Congress passed landmark stablecoin regulations this year, making the sector more acceptable to traditional Wall Street players. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the funding “further validation of the market opportunity we’re aggressively pursuing.”
Sponsored content — provided for informational and promotional purposes.
The Wall Street Embrace
Here’s the thing – this isn’t just another crypto funding round. When Citadel Securities and Fortress put serious money into a crypto company, it signals a fundamental shift. These aren’t crypto-native VCs taking punts on speculative tech. They’re traditional finance giants who’ve historically been skeptical of digital assets. But now they’re betting big on stablecoins specifically.
The timing is everything. With Trump making crypto a “strategic national focus” and Congress actually passing clear regulations, the institutional hesitation is evaporating. These players aren’t interested in meme coins or speculative tokens – they want the boring, utility-focused part of crypto that actually makes business sense. Stablecoins represent the most immediately practical application of blockchain technology for traditional finance.
Ripple’s Big Ambitions
Ripple isn’t just sitting on this cash. They’ve been on an acquisition spree – buying crypto prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, corporate treasury management company GTreasury for $1 billion, and stablecoin infrastructure provider Rail for $200 million. That tells you exactly where they’re heading.
They’re building a full-stack financial infrastructure company, not just a stablecoin issuer. The $40 billion valuation puts them ahead of Circle’s $26 billion market cap, which is pretty staggering when you consider USDC is the second-largest stablecoin globally. But Ripple seems to be betting that the infrastructure around stablecoins might be more valuable than the stablecoins themselves.
The Stablecoin Reality Check
So what’s the actual use case here? Stablecoins like Ripple’s RLUSD are essentially digital dollars – pegged 1:1 to traditional currency and backed by assets like US Treasuries. They’re mainly used by traders to move between crypto and traditional currencies quickly. But the real prize is cross-border payments and corporate treasury management.
Think about it – if large companies can use stablecoins for international payments instead of going through the traditional banking system, they could save billions in fees and settlement times. The $95 billion in payments already flowing through Ripple’s platform suggests this isn’t just theoretical anymore. The question is whether regulators will allow this parallel financial system to keep growing.
What Comes Next?
This funding round feels like a turning point. When traditional finance heavyweights like Citadel put hundreds of millions into a crypto company, it legitimizes the entire sector in ways that retail enthusiasm never could. But there’s still massive execution risk.
Ripple now has to deliver on its infrastructure vision while navigating an evolving regulatory landscape. And they’re competing against not just Circle but potentially every major bank that decides to issue its own stablecoin. At $40 billion valuation, the pressure is absolutely on to prove this isn’t just crypto hype but actual financial innovation that can scale.
