Market commentators view Ripple’s acquisition spree, surpassing $250 million, as a strategic move to position the company and XRP at the forefront of the financial world.
Austin King, co-founder of Omni Network, who sold his company to Ripple, is among those championing this perspective. In a tweet today, he argued that Ripple’s acquisitions are part of a broader strategy to expand XRP’s role in global banking.
Ripple’s Key Acquisitions
One of the standout acquisitions is Metaco, a provider of custody services for cryptocurrencies. Notably, news of this acquisition first broke in May 2023. Meanwhile, a subsequent report by The Crypto Basic confirmed Ripple completed the takeover in early 2024.
With this acquisition, Ripple is enabling banks to offer their customers a range of crypto products, including secure storage and management of digital assets. According to King, major financial institutions like Citi, HSBC, and BNP Paribas are already leveraging Metaco’s platform.
In February 2024, Ripple also acquired Standard Custody, a company that allows banks to tokenize assets on the XRP Ledger. While Ripple publicly disclosed its $250 million acquisition of Metaco, it did not reveal the financial details for Standard Custody.
King believes this acquisition lays the groundwork for Ripple to offer tokenization services to banks. He backed this view by citing the company’s recent introduction of RLUSD, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.
“RLUSD is just Ripple’s first tokenized asset,” King said. He believes Ripple’s next move will be to provide banks with the tools to tokenize a wide array of assets and integrate them into the blockchain ecosystem.
Additionally, King revealed that Ripple also acquired his own firm, which focuses on interoperability.
The Strategy for XRP
With this growing list of acquisitions, King argues that Ripple’s long-term goal is to turn the XRP Ledger into the global hub for tokenized assets.
Specifically, he noted that while tokenized assets may be moved across various blockchains, the XRP Ledger will remain central to this ecosystem, facilitating cross-chain interoperability.
Furthermore, King suggested that in addition to traditional transaction fees, Ripple plans to monetize tokenization by introducing new fee mechanisms with the tokenization process.
He believes these tokenization fees could be far more lucrative than transaction fees. According to the expert, the move would position XRP as a major infrastructure component for global financial markets, potentially driving its price upward.
A 100x Opportunity
Furthermore, King highlighted that Ripple’s strategic positioning will accelerate with the anticipated regulatory changes under the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Ultimately, as Ripple continues to focus on tokenization, interoperability, and bank adoption of blockchain, King believes the current moment represents a 100X opportunity for investors and participants in the XRP ecosystem. In his view, market participants adopting XRP are still early, with a promising future ahead.
Bullish commentary by Austin King
