While visiting the World Economic Forum (WEF) event in Davos, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse discussed growth opportunities for the company and the downturn in the crypto economy Despite this, Garlinghouse spoke about future mergers and acquisitions.
I Think We’re More Likely to be the Buyer,’ Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse Said During an Interview in Davos
We think we are likely to be a buyer.
Just recently, during a WEF meeting in Davos,Ripple Labs executive Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC in an interview that Ripple Labs has a “very strong balance sheet”. Garlinghouse spoke about Ripple Labs possibly participating in an M&A (M&A) transaction, where Ripple Labs would be the buyer.” We are in a growth phase right now and … I think we’re likely to be a buyer versus a seller,” Garlinghouse told CNBC author Arjun Kharpal.Garlinghouse further noted that he expects an increase in M&A
in the blockchain industry, “I think there will be a rise in M&A in the blockchain and crypto space,” Garlinghouse explained in his interview.” We have yet to see that. But I think it could be in the future . And I certainly think we will consider something like that as it unfolds.”
A number of acquisitions took place in the crypto space in late 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. For example, Coinbase acquired the company Fairx Exchange in January 2022, and Oppensea also acquired Dharma Labs that month; in February, the Ethereum software company Consensys announced the acquisition of Mycrypto wallet. The following March, fractional investment firm Public announced its acquisition of digital collectibles and non-fossil token (NFT) technology startup Otis.
In April, payment and checkout and shopper network Bolt acquired Wyre for $1.5 billion. Additionally, at the end of May, Huobi Global revealed its acquisition of Latin American crypto exchange Bitex. The RippleLabs CEO’s remarks at Davos also follow billionaire and FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s talk about spending billions on M&A deal; Garlinghouse said in Davos that “crypto has a lot of room for growth and we are going to be able to do a lot of different things for it. and we see a lot of different niches for it,” he explained.
Meanwhile, crypto assetxrp (XRP)boasts the sixth largest market capitalization of the more than 13,400 crypto assets in existence today. However, year-to-date,XRPhas lost 59%; XRPhas lost 59.2% against the USD and 34% over the past 30 days. XRPhas also not seen an all-time high (ATH) in 7 months, as many other digital assets did in November 2021. XRP‘s last recorded ATH was over four years ago on January 7, 2018, following a crypto bull run in 2017. XRPhas fallen more than 88% since that ATH, representing 1.49% of its market valuation of $1.28 trillion in the entire crypto economy.
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