- Brad Garlinghouse hopes that within 5 years Ripple will rise to Amazon for payments.
- Ripple’s IPO is inevitable, but the time frame is still open.
Brad Garlinghouse was a guest of Julia Chatterley on CNN yesterday and spoke about the rumors of an IPO, the valuation of Ripple as a company, and the current state of the cryptocurrency market. Chatterley began by asking Garlinghouse what he thinks about the thesis that one cryptocurrency is better than any other.
Garlinghouse stated that ultimately there will be no single winner in crypto space. Different cryptocurrencies offer different services to consumers, so XRP cannot be compared to Ethereum or Bitcoin.
Regarding the recent Series C funding round and the financial situation of Ripple, Garlinghouse explained that Ripple currently owns XRP worth more than $15 billion. This figure is significantly higher than the $10 billion valuation of the funding round. Potential investors are often intimidated by these figures, as Garlinghouse has noted:
I think any time you have new investors come in, you are intimidated by the expectations that are set. By the same token, Ripple at today’s XRP price owns somewhere north of $15 billion worth of crypto. So in some ways, those investors came in at a discount. We are in a very fortunate position with a very strong balance sheet.
He added that he is looking at the success of the company from a longer-term perspective. For this purpose, he drew a comparison with the online trading giant Amazon. As Garlinghouse argued, Amazon started out as a bookseller before becoming the hub of online commerce. He believes that Ripple has similar potential:
I hope that in 5 years we’re not just Amazon books, we’re Amazon.
However, Ripple’s CEO also noted that cross-border payments will remain Ripple’s core business. However, with new developments, such as Coil for micro payments, the Ripple ecosystem will continue to grow, as well as Ripple as a company. Despite the bear market, 150 new employees have been hired, while many other projects have seen massive layoffs.
Ripple’s IPO is a matter of time
Concerning the possible IPO, Garlinghouse explained that media misinterpreted his statement. At the time, he only wanted to express that Ripple would be neither the first nor the last to take this path. He also stated that an IPO of Ripple is inevitable, but that the time frame is still open:
What I said was 2020 will likely have crypto and blockchain IPOs. And I think what I said was Ripple won’t be the first, but we certainly don’t want to be the last. So I kind of kept it open-ended. I think people heard something a little different than that.
An IPO could give Ripple more flexibility to make other investments, like the $50 million investment in MoneyGram. However, an IPO by Ripple is controversially discussed.
The third part of the interview, in which Garlinghouse talks about Ripple’s IPO, can be found in the following tweet.
INTERVIEW PART III 👇🏼
What is the investment case for #XRP? "The value of any digital asset in the long term will be derived from the utility it delivers," @Ripple CEO @bgarlinghouse talks driving utility, ecosystem liquidity and going public. #IPO pic.twitter.com/tlfhkTQ7bs— Julia Chatterley (@jchatterleyCNN) February 17, 2020
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