According to Financial Times News, Ripple has raised $500 million from investors including Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group, valuing the stablecoin company at $40 billion. 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 accessible to traditional financial players.
<h2 id="wall-street-s-crypto-pivot”>Wall Street’s crypto pivot
Here’s the thing – this isn’t just another crypto funding round. When Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group jump in, we’re talking about traditional finance heavyweights putting serious money behind crypto infrastructure. And they’re doing it at a $40 billion valuation that actually makes Ripple more valuable than Circle, which just went public on the NYSE at $26 billion. Basically, Wall Street is betting that stablecoins represent the future of payments infrastructure, not just crypto trading tools.
The Trump effect
It’s impossible to ignore the political context here. The article notes that the US under Donald Trump has “embraced the crypto industry” and made it a “strategic national focus.” Congress passing those stablecoin regulations this year wasn’t accidental – it created the regulatory clarity that traditional financial institutions needed to feel comfortable investing at this scale. So now we’re seeing the floodgates open. The timing suggests these big players believe the regulatory environment will remain favorable, at least through the current administration.
What Ripple’s building
Ripple isn’t just sitting on this cash. They’ve been aggressively acquiring companies – $1.25 billion for crypto prime broker Hidden Road, $1 billion for corporate treasury management firm GTreasury, and $200 million for stablecoin infrastructure provider Rail. They’re building something much bigger than just another stablecoin issuer. Look at their $95 billion in platform payment volume last year – they’re positioning themselves as the infrastructure backbone for corporate crypto payments and treasury management. That’s a much bigger market than just serving crypto traders.
What this means for everyone else
For regular users? Probably not much immediate change. But for enterprises and developers, this validation from traditional finance could accelerate adoption of stablecoins for cross-border payments and corporate treasury operations. The competition between Ripple and Circle is heating up dramatically too – with Ripple now valued significantly higher despite Circle’s USDC being the second-largest stablecoin globally. The real question is whether this influx of traditional capital will lead to more conservative, regulated products or if it will fuel the next wave of crypto innovation. Either way, the lines between traditional finance and crypto are blurring faster than ever.
