IPO illusion ends? Ripple remains private with a $40 billion valuation, aiming for dominance in financial infrastructure

Ripple President Monica Long confidently stated in a Bloomberg interview that the company currently plans to remain private and has no intention of initiating an IPO. This announcement comes shortly after a $500 million funding round completed in November 2025, at which time the company’s valuation had reached $40 billion.

Ripple has chosen a path different from peers like Circle and BitGo, backed by a healthy balance sheet, a continuously growing $95 billion in payment processing volume, and the rapid momentum of its stablecoin RLUSD, which surpassed $1 billion in market cap within seven months of launch. This marks a shift in the crypto industry’s leading players from pursuing the halo of public markets to leveraging private capital and strategic acquisitions to deepen their foothold in the next-generation global financial settlement layer.

Why Say “No” to IPO? Decoding Ripple’s Private Strategy Confidence

When a tech company reaches a valuation of $40 billion, the market typically expects it to knock on the doors of public markets. However, Ripple President Monica Long’s latest statement completely breaks this inertia. After completing a $500 million financing led by Castle Securities and Fortress Investment Group, Ripple not only did not accelerate its listing plans but instead reaffirmed its commitment to staying private. Long explained straightforwardly: “The typical strategy to push for an IPO is to access public market investors and liquidity… but we are in a very healthy position, and can continue to fund our growth and investments without going public.”

This confidence is rooted primarily in its exceptionally strong financials and top-tier investor lineup. Besides the latest funding, Ripple earlier in 2025 completed a $1 billion share repurchase offer, also based on a $40 billion valuation. This indicates that institutional capital demand for its equity remains robust in the private market. Its shareholder list is quite prestigious, including traditional Wall Street giants like Castle Securities and Fortress, as well as top crypto-native funds like Pantera Capital and Galaxy Digital. The backing of these “smart money” provides Ripple with financing channels and credibility comparable to a listed company, while avoiding quarterly earnings pressure and stock price volatility.

Deeper logic suggests that Ripple’s ambitions go far beyond becoming a successful “public company.” It aims to build a closed-loop, enterprise-grade digital asset financial infrastructure. Going public often requires strategic compromises to meet short-term market expectations, but Ripple is actively building its empire through strategic acquisitions: acquiring Hidden Road (now integrated as Ripple Prime) to gain institutional brokerage capabilities; acquiring GTreasury to control core technology for corporate treasury management and reconciliation. These moves aim to create a comprehensive service loop covering payments, custody, liquidity provision, and treasury management. Remaining private grants the flexibility and patience needed to integrate these businesses without the pressure of explaining short-term financial impacts of each acquisition to the public.

The key pillars and data of Ripple’s “private empire”

• Valuation & Funding: Latest valuation $40 billion; $500 million financing completed in Nov 2025; $1 billion share repurchase completed in 2025.
• Core Business Scale: Ripple Payments processed over $95 billion; operates in more than 75 global regulatory jurisdictions.
• Stablecoin Progress: RLUSD market cap surpassed $1 billion within 7 months of launch.
• Acquisitions & Integration: Six acquisitions in recent years, including two over $1 billion, building a closed loop of payments, custody, brokerage, and treasury management.
• Institutional Services: Ripple Prime handles over 60 million transactions daily, with client collateral doubling.

Beyond Payments: How Ripple is Building a Full-Stack Digital Asset Financial Ecosystem

Ripple’s story has long since transcended its native token XRP and the initial narrative of cross-border payments. Today, it is transforming itself into a comprehensive digital asset service provider serving traditional financial institutions and large enterprises. Its business has extended into several key areas, forming a synergistic ecosystem.

The payment network remains its foundation and traffic gateway. Ripple Payments has processed over $95 billion, providing stable transaction flow data and deep customer relationships. More importantly, it is integrating payment flows with the stablecoin RLUSD at a deep level. The rapid growth of RLUSD (surpassing $1 billion in market cap within seven months) is no accident; it is designed as a key settlement tool connecting traditional fiat currencies with the crypto world, especially for enterprise clients. Through acquiring GTreasury, Ripple can offer seamless crypto asset accounting, reconciliation, and treasury management solutions for corporate clients, greatly lowering the barriers to adopting RLUSD and crypto payments.

On the institutional side, Ripple Prime, as the core of its institutional brokerage, is growing rapidly. It not only provides collateralized lending services for digital assets like XRP but also handles an astonishing average of over 60 million transactions daily, with platform scale tripling in a short period. This indicates that institutional clients see it as an important gateway into the crypto market. Additionally, Ripple has never abandoned efforts to deepen roots within the traditional financial system. It is actively seeking US banking licenses and a Fed master account. Success would mean RLUSD could directly access the US core interbank payment system, representing a historic breakthrough in integrating blockchain technology with traditional financial infrastructure.

Timing the Market: Diverging Paths from Circle and BitGo’s IPOs

Ripple’s choice of a “self-contained” privatization route contrasts sharply with other major industry players, reflecting the diversification of capital strategies and business philosophies emerging during the crypto industry’s maturation.

In June 2025, stablecoin giant Circle successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, marking a new chapter as a public company. Circle’s IPO can be seen as a major push for regulatory transparency and mainstream recognition, aiming to solidify USDC as the most compliant stablecoin and to leverage public market funds to accelerate competition. Similarly, custody leader BitGo has filed for an IPO to enhance its capital strength and market credibility through a public offering.

Ripple’s approach offers an alternative model: not pursuing the brand halo and retail liquidity of a public market, but relying on strategic private placements and its own cash flow to build a deep, B2B moat. This path allows management to focus entirely on long-term product development and complex institutional client needs, avoiding the daily volatility of stock prices and short-term pressures from aggressive shareholders. While Circle must explain quarterly profit fluctuations to the public, Ripple can focus on billion-dollar acquisitions that may only bear fruit years later. Both models have their advantages and disadvantages, but they clearly show that under the “tokenization supercycle” expectation, top companies are choosing different paths based on their resources and strategic goals.

Navigating the Regulatory Deep Waters

Building any financial infrastructure requires a dance with regulatory frameworks. Ripple has demonstrated foresight and patience in this regard. The most recent significant progress is that the OCC conditionally approved Ripple’s national trust bank charter application in December 2025. Although this approval is conditional and Ripple has stated it will not act as the issuer of its USD stablecoin RLUSD, it remains a milestone in its deepening engagement with the US financial regulatory system. Gaining national trust bank status will greatly enhance institutional confidence in its custody and asset services.

Meanwhile, Ripple has entrusted the custody of RLUSD to BNY Mellon, one of the world’s largest custodians. This cooperation is no coincidence; it is a key move to demonstrate security and robustness to the traditional financial world, aiming to dispel last doubts among large institutions regarding asset custody. More ambitious is Ripple’s active lobbying and pursuit of a Fed master account. Fed Governor Christopher Waller has proposed allowing qualified crypto firms to access a “simplified” Fed account, which Ripple’s leadership has publicly called “attractive and reassuring.” If achieved, RLUSD’s settlement efficiency and finality could rival or surpass traditional banking systems.

This series of compliance strategies collectively outlines Ripple’s strategic intent: not to overthrow or bypass the existing financial system, but to become a regulated and deeply integrated new infrastructure provider. This “integration rather than opposition” approach is especially pragmatic and sustainable amid the current global tightening of crypto regulation.

XRP Holders and the Market: Short-term Pain and Long-term Rebalancing

For the broad XRP holders and market observers, Ripple’s decision to forego an IPO should be viewed from a macro perspective. In the short term, it may dispel some investors’ hopes that “IPO news” would boost XRP prices, as evidenced by about a 6% correction after the announcement. Indeed, a high-profile listing often brings significant market attention and capital inflow.

However, in the long run, Ripple’s privatization could have more complex and fundamental impacts on the XRP ecosystem. On the positive side, Ripple can concentrate all resources and efforts on product development and market adoption without being distracted by the complexities of public compliance and communication. Healthier corporate finances and more focused strategic execution will, through expanding payment networks, institutional adoption, and promoting RLUSD-XRP liquidity, enhance the practical value and demand within the XRP ecosystem. As a key bridge asset and liquidity tool within its ecosystem, XRP’s fundamentals will become more tightly linked to Ripple’s success.

Potential challenges include transparency. Private companies are not required to disclose as detailed financial and operational data as public companies, making it harder for the community and market to accurately assess Ripple’s health and its specific use of XRP. Additionally, concerns about centralization may persist as its business empire grows. The market will need to adapt to a new narrative: XRP’s value will increasingly depend on the adoption and network effects of Ripple’s enterprise-grade financial infrastructure, rather than a single listing event. This marks a profound shift from “event-driven” to “utility-driven” valuation.

Conclusion: Infrastructure’s “Undercurrent” Surges Beyond Market “Waves”

Ripple’s rejection of an IPO acts like a mirror, reflecting the profound transformation occurring among leading crypto players. While the market is eager to chase the next listing concept and price swings, Ripple chooses to go deep, using private capital and strategic acquisitions to build an “invisible bridge” connecting traditional finance and digital assets. Its over $950 billion in payment flows, rapid stablecoin growth, and ambitious compliance plans indicate that the core of this race has shifted.

This may reveal a larger trend: the ultimate winners in crypto may no longer be those generating the most market noise or speculation, but those who deeply embed into the underlying global value transfer infrastructure and provide indispensable efficiency solutions for the real economy. Whether or not to IPO is merely a capital path choice; the real strategic question is whether they can define the rules and standards of the next-generation financial network. Ripple’s choices tell us it is fully committed to this larger, more challenging race. For the industry, a giant valued at $40 billion choosing to stay out of the spotlight of public markets may signal the true beginning of industry maturity — shifting from chasing valuation bubbles to forging a real, usable financial future.