by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • In crypto, perhaps being early can really pay off.
  • This sure seems to be the case for Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-based blockchain firm that is now worth over $40 billion.
  • And after years of tangling with the SEC, the company is experiencing much fairer weather in the regulatory climate with Trump in charge.
  • “In the US it’s been more constrained because of the whole SEC saga, so interest skewed retail and offshore venues,” Wang told BeInCrypto.

What Happened

And after years of tangling with the SEC, the company is experiencing much fairer weather in the regulatory climate with Trump in charge. Since the US presidential election, the price of XRP, the altcoin Ripple launched way back in 2012, has stayed above a $2 price point not seen since the blockchain bull run of 2017.

What can’t be denied is that investors have been grabbing up XRP over the past year. Since Trump was elected in November 2024, the price of XRP has gone from $0.50 to $2.15, a 330% increase.

It may be that crypto investors and OG whales are simply accumulating more XRP because Ripple Labs, as the largest contributor to the cryptocurrency, appears to be a fairly well-performing crypto firm.

Ripple’s recent influx of $500 million in capital from Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities at a $40 billion valuation certainly reflects that.

Recently, UK-based CoinShares backed away from launching a US XRP ETF product, which likely would have increased demand from investors who stick to the public markets.

It’s important to keep in mind that CoinShares also decided not to launch ETFs on Solana or Litecoin either, so it’s not just XRP that there’s some hesitancy from them to launch these crypto-backed products.

Market Context

Hedy Wang, CEO of crypto liquidity provider Block Street, says Ripple’s foothold in America may grow now, but it already has traction in other parts of the world, too.

“XRP is still heavily a speculative asset,” Holmes told BeInCrypto. “With crypto as a whole, the valuation isn’t supported by its own income stream, so it’s a function of liquidity production and reallocation from other stores of value.”

CoinGecko’s data pegs the price of XRP appreciating by over 36,000% since it was first listed on exchanges starting August 3, 2013.

Why It Matters

The term “cross-border payments” may sound like a lot of corporate jargon. But ask anyone who has sent money from one country to others, and it is obvious this is a problematic process. It can be slow. It can be expensive.

“CoinShares likely walked away because the SEC isn’t giving XRP regulatory clarity that it’s ETF-ready,” said BrokerListings’ Holmes.

Details

In crypto, perhaps being early can really pay off. This sure seems to be the case for Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-based blockchain firm that is now worth over $40 billion.

But is there an actual use case for XRP?

The XRP Payments Corridor

“In the US it’s been more constrained because of the whole SEC saga, so interest skewed retail and offshore venues,” Wang told BeInCrypto. “Historically you see decent XRP traction in Japan, parts of East Asia, and some remittance-heavy corridors like the Philippines or Latin America via partners.”

“Bitcoin is viewed as ‘digital gold’, Ethereum is known for smart contracts,” noted certified public accountant Gregory Monaco, who runs an eponymous CPA firm. “XRP gets its value from cross-border payments.”

Monaco pointed to Ripple’s 300 financial partners in 45 countries and $15 billion in annual cross-border payments as key indicators of its use case.

It’s possible, then, that a company behind a cryptocurrency, like Ripple, can put in the real manpower and work to achieve an important payments corridor.

“If Ripple keeps stacking licenses and bank/fintech integrations, XRP can survive as niche financial plumbing,” added Block Street’s Wang.

Cross-Border Is Not So Simple

Additionally, currency exchanges are required. Cryptocurrencies like XRP are borderless, global, and cheap. There’s value in reducing TradFi’s reliance on regular payment systems.

Still, ‘hopium’ alone doesn’t necessarily mean that XRP’s valuation is that closely tied to its payments use case, noted Paul Holmes, a researcher at BrokerListings.

XRP as an ETF Catalyst

“XRP is already being used to move value between currencies, stablecoins, and across the growing set of tokenized financial assets on the network,” said Raquel Amanda, Senior Communications Lead for Ripple. “As the ecosystem grows, the need for fast and neutral settlement increases, and we see XRP naturally continuing to fill that role.”