Ripple CEO Says $1 Trillion Valuation Is Within Reach

Ripple Labs’ CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, is extremely bullish on his company, stating that Ripple can become crypto’s first US$1 trillion (AU$1.53 trillion) company.

Speaking during XRP Community Day on X, the Ripple CEO said a trillion-dollar crypto firm is inevitable and claimed Ripple has a shot if it executes “well” alongside the XRP ecosystem. 

Well, Ripple’s last disclosed valuation was about US$40 billion (AU$61.2 billion), set by a US$500 million (AU$765 million) raise in November that included Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group. 

So… reaching US$1 trillion would mean roughly a 25x jump from that mark.

Garlinghouse also told CNBC he expects crypto to hit new highs in 2026 and said he is “very bullish,” without naming specific assets or price targets. 

He tied that view to the direction of US regulation, pointing to the proposed CLARITY Act market-structure bill. The legislation has been moving around, but Coinbase also pulled its support recently, while pushing changes it says would work for both crypto firms and banks. 

Read more: Fed’s Waller Eyes ‘Skinny’ Master Account by Year-End as Crypto Hype Cools

Ripple Keeps On Building (Acquiring)

Ripple has been building out more than just payments. It bought prime broker Hidden Road for US$1.25 billion (AU$1.91 billion) and treasury management firm GTreasury for US$1 billion (AU$1.53 billion) last year, and spent US$200 million (AU$306 million) on stablecoin firm Rail. 

It also acquired wallet-as-a-service provider Palisade for an undisclosed amount.

On Monday, Ripple said it expanded its institutional custody platform by integrating Securosys and Figment. The firm stated Securosys adds hardware security modules so banks and custodians can manage cryptographic keys on-premises or in the cloud, while Figment is meant to let institutions offer staking without running their own validator or building key-management infrastructure.

Garlinghouse’s pitch to XRP holders was to ignore short-term pain; he cited about 33% monthly declines for XRP and 26% for Bitcoin and focused on what he called the larger opportunity to make financial infrastructure faster and cheaper.

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