Ripple raises $500 million at $40 billion valuation
Infamous blockchain payments company, and parent of the XRP token, Ripple, announced a $500 million fundraising only months after a $1 billion tender offer. Where today’s raise differs, though, is that it came from heavyweight investors Fortress and Citadel. The round was announced on X, along with a slew of highlights from the past year, including:
The RLUSD stablecoin crossing $1 billion market cap in under 1 year
Repurchased 25% of its outstanding shares in recent years
Making $4 billion worth of strategic investments in 2025
Bitcoin’s Silent IPO
In another memo to investors, Bitwise CIO Matthew Hougan breaks down a recent deep dive from Jordi Visser (read it here) arguing that bitcoin’s sideways action – despite strong ETF flows, friendlier policies, and rapidly rising institutional demand – looks like a lot like “silent IPO.” The gist? This is a distribution phase, not an end-game. Sideways is a accumulation opportunity. And thanks to bitcoin’s shrinking volatility, the era of only 1% BTC allocations is closing. Read more →
Bank Lobby Moves to Slow Stablecoin Charters
The Bank Policy Institute (BPI) sent four letters to the OCC urging it to reject five national trust bank charters sought by stablecoin issuers (Ripple, Circle, Paxos, National Digital Trust Company, and payments firm Wise). The group argues the applications are overly redacted, legally dubious, and would let “regulatory-light” trusts expand into bank-like activities (payments) beyond their intended scope. Axios’s Brady Dale sums it up perfectly: “It was never going to be enough to get a law passed in the U.S. There was always going to be a bureaucratic fight, too.” Read more →
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