Ripple Labs has completed a $500 million strategic funding round in 2025 at a valuation of $40 billion, led by Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities, with participation from Brevan Howard, Marshall Weiss, Pantera Capital, and Galaxy Digital.
This was in addition to a $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation earlier this year, which provided liquidity to early shareholders without public market oversight.
The investor directory is like a directory for capital deployment to institutional investors. These are not crypto venture funds making speculative bets on protocols, but rather multi-strategy firms and market makers managing hundreds of billions of dollars in traditional assets.
Their participation signals that something has changed in how seriously the financial system views Ripple’s position.
At the same time, Ripple is actively building. The company acquired prime broker Hidden Road for about $1.25 billion, finance platform GTreasury for about $1 billion, and stablecoin infrastructure company Rail for $200 million.
The company launched and expanded RLUSD, a fully reserved dollar stablecoin with over $1 billion in supply used for payments and collateral.
The company has applied to establish a U.S. national bank and obtain a master account with the Federal Reserve Board to hold its stablecoin reserves directly with the Fed.
And it formally ended the existential SEC battle with a $125 million fine and injunction limiting institutional XRP sales, while upholding a key ruling that XRP itself is not a security as traded on exchanges.
It is currently one of the most valuable private cryptocurrency companies on the planet, backed by top-class traditional finance and building a regulated dollar and infrastructure stack. Obvious question: Does “bigger Ripple” automatically mean better results for XRP?
The answer is more complicated than the headline suggests.
Stocks are not tokens
The first clear point is more important than any other. Fortress, Citadel Securities, and other companies did not buy XRP. They bought Ripple stock.
Stockholders have rights to Ripple’s operations, including stablecoin revenues, custody fees, prime brokerage operations, software licenses, payment processing, and any financial benefits derived from Ripple’s holdings of XRP.
XRP holders do not acquire rights to Ripple’s profits, receive no dividends, and do not participate in Ripple’s governance.
Tokens exist on an economic plane separate from the corporate structure.
The $40 billion valuation is a testament to traditional finance and argues that Ripple’s corporate stack is valuable in a world where the GENIUS Act clears regulations for stablecoins and allows banks to store digital assets.
This is not a claim that tomorrow’s XRP will be worth more per coin or that the token’s usefulness has simply expanded mechanically.
This difference should anchor expectations on what this funding round actually means for XRP holders. A larger Ripple balance sheet does not automatically lead to higher token prices or expanded use cases. It creates selectivity, not necessity.
Conditional rising case
There are several paths a larger, better-capitalized Ripple could take to increase XRP’s real-world utility, each depending on execution choices the company has not yet made.
First, Ripple now has strong firepower to deepen the financial rails that can integrate XRP. Increased capital for liquidity programs, improved integration of XRP into payment corridors, interoperability of RLUSD and XRP for multi-currency payments, and use of prime brokers and custody stacks will make it easier for financial institutions to hold and fund XRP.
The bullish case hinges on capital and regulatory credibility, leading to more institutional adoption of XRP as a cross-border liquid asset.
Second, the SEC clouds have lifted. The company resolved the regulatory overhang that existed with a manageable settlement that maintains the important precedent that XRP traded on exchanges is not a security.
This would remove a barrier for US institutions that were previously unable to access XRP due to unregistered security risks. Reducing risk for issuers with the backing of large investors will make it easier for risk committees to consider XRP exposure at least alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Third, owning Hidden Road and similar infrastructure assets gives Ripple direct influence over parts of the institutional trading stack.
If Ripple chooses to route some of its flows through XRP for foreign exchange, collateral management, or liquidity provision, its infrastructure footprint could translate into significant utility-driven demand rather than purely speculative positioning.
All of these describe possibilities rather than mechanisms. This funding round creates an avenue for Ripple to pursue. XRP does not mandate any particular outcome.
Strategic dilution risk
The more unpleasant and most honest view is that Ripple’s new strategy could dilute the centrality of XRP to its business model.
Most of what investors are paying $40 billion for is Ripple’s position in stablecoins and regulated infrastructure, not XRP maximalism.
RLUSD is explicitly a dollar token, not a bridge asset. Its growth, fueled by Treasury bills and bank-style oversight integrated into Hidden Road, GTreasury, and Rail, is a direct reflection of financial institutions’ desire for on-chain dollars with yield and regulatory compliance.
This is a fundamentally different product from XRP’s original “bridge asset between fiat corridors” narrative.
The GENIUS legal framework and pursuit of the Banking Charter require Ripple to act like a prudent and supervised financial institution.
In that world, RLUSD and custody fees are clean revenue sources approved by regulators.
Promoting large amounts of XRP speculation or relying on continued XRP sales becomes less attractive from a political and prudential oversight perspective.
The more Ripple can generate revenue from stablecoin yield spreads, payment processing, brokerage fees, and software licenses, the less it will need XRP as a core revenue source.
This is good for Ripple’s long-term solvency and regulatory position. This undermines the simple theory that “XRP will be in the moon because Ripple is successful.”
There is also the reality of oversupply. Ripple still manages a large stash of XRP in escrow. A stronger balance sheet means there is less immediate pressure to sell working capital to the market, which should support prices slightly.
But those holdings are still part of what stock investors value when valuing the company at $40 billion.
The market knows those coins exist. A funding round doesn’t make them disappear or commit to a specific use case.
Some tensions worth considering are: Ripple has evolved into a diversified stablecoin and infrastructure company, and its success only partially overlaps with XRP’s original role.
This token was designed as a bridging asset to address liquidity issues in cross-border payments. The company is currently building a comprehensive financial infrastructure that generates predictable fees from dollar, custody, and prime services. These businesses don’t need XRP to work.
What $40 Billion Really Shows
An honest assessment requires distinguishing between what a funding round proves and what it suggests.
This proves that some of the sharpest allocators in traditional finance believe in Ripple’s stablecoin, custody, and prime brokerage strategy in a post-GENIUS regulatory environment.
This confirms that Ripple has institutional credibility and can access a huge pool of capital without going public. This proves that the company has survived its regulatory battles and emerged with valuable business and regulatory clarity.
This does not prove that these companies will promote the adoption of XRP. There is no guarantee that Ripple will prioritize XRP integration over alternative revenue sources.
That does not eliminate the structural tension between what equity investors value, i.e., predictable and regulated financial services, and what token holders desire, i.e., the utility and growth of demand for XRP itself.
Whether “bigger Ripple” matters to XRP depends entirely on the choices the company makes with this capital and credibility.
Will Ripple use its $500 million and institutional backing to drive real trading demand for XRP beyond speculative trading? Will it integrate XRP into growing institutional stacks in a way that stablecoins and plain dollars cannot?
Or will RLUSD and Dollar Rail completely cannibalize the bridge asset narrative of XRP, leaving the token as a legacy holding that pays for new initiatives but has no stake in its appreciation?
Currently, the funding round mainly shows that investors are keen on Ripple’s transition to regulated dollars and its infrastructure. For XRP holders, it represents an opportunity, not a promise.
The company has more resources to build the rails that XRP could become important to, and more resources to build around it.
The $40 billion valuation is real. Whether it is converted into an XRP utility depends on execution decisions that have yet to be made.
