Ripple Labs isn't content being just another crypto company. The XRP-linked firm has unleashed a nearly $4 billion acquisition blitz this year, buying everything from prime brokerages to treasury software as it plots to become a full-scale financial services powerhouse. CEO Brad Garlinghouse's bet: traditional banks are finally ready to embrace blockchain infrastructure, and Ripple wants to be their gateway drug.
Ripple Labs just made the biggest bet in crypto: that traditional finance is ready to go blockchain. The company's nearly $4 billion acquisition spree this year isn't just about getting bigger - it's about repositioning itself as the bridge between two worlds that have spent years eyeing each other suspiciously.
"I want to see Ripple invest in [the] future and get ahead of where that market's going," CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC's Crypto World at the Ripple Swell 2025 conference. "The assets we have been buying have been on the traditional finance side, so we can bring crypto-enabled solutions to that traditional financial world."
The shopping list reads like a fintech acquisition roadmap. April brought the $1.3 billion purchase of prime brokerage Hidden Road. This fall, Ripple dropped over $1 billion on GTreasury, a treasury management software firm. Last week alone, the company launched a new institutional brokerage, raised $500 million in fresh funding, and saw its valuation hit $40 billion.
The timing couldn't be better. Wall Street's crypto skepticism is melting faster than ice cream in August. Bank of America and Citigroup are actively exploring stablecoins, with Citi planning a crypto custody service for 2026. JPMorgan announced plans for a "deposit token" on Coinbase's Base blockchain. Since spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024, institutional investors have poured billions into digital assets.
"The United States used to lean out on crypto, and now we're leaning in, and I think people underestimate how big a shift that is," Garlinghouse said, pointing to the likely market impact under President Trump's crypto-friendly administration.
But here's where it gets interesting for XRP holders. Ripple isn't just building services - it's positioning its XRP Ledger as the infrastructure backbone for institutional partnerships. "The more we can build utility and really scale solutions that take advantage of XRP at the core, the more that will be uniquely good for the XRP ecosystem," Garlinghouse explained.
