During the World Economic Forum (WEF) event in Davos, Ripple Labs CEO, Brad Garlinghouse discussed the growth opportunities for the firm and despite the slowdown of the crypto economy, Garlinghouse talked about future mergers and acquisitions.
“I think we are more likely to be buyers,” said Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse during an interview in Davos
More recently, during the WEF conference in Davos, Ripple Labs executive Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC in an interview that Ripple Labs has “a very strong balance sheet.” Garlinghouse talks about Ripple Labs participating in merger and acquisition (M&A) deals and Ripple Labs will be the buyer. “We are now at that stage of growth where I think we are more likely to be buyers versus sellers,” Garlinghouse told CNBC writer Arjun Kharpal. Garlinghouse further explained that he expects to see an increase in M&A in the blockchain industry.
“I think there will be an increase in M&A in the blockchain and crypto space,” Garlinghouse explained during his interview. “We haven’t seen it yet. But I think it’s likely in the future. And I certainly think we’ll consider things like that as soon as it comes out.”
There have been several acquisitions in the crypto space during the latter half of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. For example, Coinbase acquired the firm FairX Exchange in January 2022, and Opensea acquired Dharma Labs that month as well. In February, Ethereum software company Consensys announced the acquisition of Mycrypto Wallet. In March of the following month, fractional investment company Public announced the acquisition of digital collectible and non-fungible token (NFT) technology startup Otis.
In April, Bolt, a payments and checkout and shopper network, acquired Wire for $1.5 billion. Furthermore, in late May, Huobi Global revealed that it had acquired Latin American crypto exchange Bitex. The statement from the CEO of Ripple Labs in Davos also follows billionaire and FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried talking about spending billions on M&A deals. Garlinghouse explained in Davos that “there is a lot of room for growth in cryptocurrencies, and we are seeing a lot of different trails for it.”
Meanwhile, the crypto asset xrp (XRP) has the sixth largest market capitalization among the over 13,400 crypto assets in existence today. However, year-on-year, XRP is down 59.2% against the US Dollar and has lost 34% over the past 30 days. XRP also did not see an all-time high (ATH) seven months ago, as did many other digital assets back in November 2021. XRP’s last recorded ATH was four years ago on January 7, 2018, following the 2017 crypto bull run. XRP has fallen over 88% since ATH and its market valuation represents 1.49% of the $1.28 trillion worth of the entire crypto economy.
What do you think about the statements made at Davos regarding future mergers and acquisitions? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
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