Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reportedly all but confirmed that Ripple will be going public at the World Economic Forum yesterday. According to this person, who was there:
“In the next 12 months, you’ll see IPOs in the crypto/blockchain space. We’re not going to be the first and we’re not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side… it’s a natural evolution for our company.” –@bgarlinghouse at #WEF20
— Asheesh Birla (@ashgoblue) January 23, 2020
From ICO to IPO
Garlinghouse appears to believe that IPOs are going to become a common thread among crypto companies.
While an IPO may have a more regulatory friendly appeal to it than an ICO, it’s unclear how the crypto community will react. Of course, companies like Coinbase are expected to go public. But Ripple already issues a form of stock in the shape of XRP, which it sells and which lives on a public market. Now Ripple will be issuing a real stock, apparently at some point.
As Garlinghouse says, his company would be among the first to offer an IPO in the space. Previously, Bitmain, the world’s largest producer of Bitcoin mining hardware, had pursued the idea of an IPO in Hong Kong. It never saw the light of day, ultimately.
The news comes on the heels of a historically bad quarter for Ripple in terms of selling XRP. Ripple relies on sales of XRP to general demand to offset its need to sell tokens from its massive hoard on exchanges.
XRP sales were reportedly down around 80% from the third quarter. This indicates demand, and usage, of the token is somewhat drying up.
Ripple On The Rebound
Not for long, though. XRP has a historically much higher demand, and there’s no reason not to expect it to return in part or in full. The cryptocurrency is one of the only with such a high volume of tokens to also have a high market capitalization.
Brad Garlinghouse believes that more and more companies will go public. He also sees a greater consolidation in the industry, as he commented on a recent story:
Not surprising to see this kind of consolidation, and expect this will set the stage for more to come in 2020 – in fintech, crypto and beyond. https://t.co/SMVNxZd1br
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 14, 2020
So Ripple will likely issue stock and all that soon enough, but what would be more interesting is if it did so using its own blockchain. Prove some of Ripple’s use case, and issue shares using the same blockchain people are investing in. Now that would be interesting.
But it’s unlikely to happen. People may have an interest in cryptocurrency by investing in crypto companies, but that doesn’t mean they’ll want to dive right in. Diving right in is perhaps the only way to truly get immersed in cryptocurrency though.
How would Ripple stock perform against something like Coinbase stock, and what other companies might consider going public in the US? Can we expect a Binance stock ticker? Time will tell.
