- The Deal: Ripple secured $500 million in November at a $40 billion valuation, attracting heavyweights like Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group.
- The Hedge: Investors negotiated rare downside protections, including a right to sell shares back to Ripple at a 10% guaranteed annual return after 3-4 years.
- The Asset: Funds assessed that nearly 90% of Ripple’s net asset value is derived from its XRP treasury, effectively making the equity a discounted proxy for the token.
Ripple’s $500 million share sale has become the latest test case for how Wall Street enters crypto without taking full market risk.
A new Bloomberg report shows that the Ripple $500 million share sale at a $40 billion valuation gave funds tied to Citadel Securities, Fortress, Brevan Howard, Marshall Wace, Galaxy Digital, and Pantera guaranteed annual returns, put options, and liquidation preference on their stake.
The structure of the deal shows a shift in how established financial institutions approach high-volatility markets. They want exposure to growth, yet they also want clear protection. Consequently, the agreement highlights a model that now blends equity ownership with return guarantees, giving investors more certainty in a market that often swings sharply.
Related: Wall Street’s New Favorite Crypto? XRP ETFs See Record $622M in Cumulative Inflows
How Ripple Structured The $500 Million Wall Street Deal
Bloomberg’s breakdown shows that investors in the Ripple $500 million share sale did not simply buy common stock and hope for an IPO. Instead, they secured a right to sell shares back to Ripple after three or four years at a guaranteed 10% annual return, unless the company lists publicly before then. That gives funds a bond-like floor in a market where valuations can swing with every XRP move.
Ripple also kept the ability to repurchase those shares earlier, but at a higher cost. If the company calls the stock in before that three-to-four-year window, investors are owed about a 25% annualized return, according to summaries of the term sheet. That choice effectively prices in a rich buyback cost if Ripple wants to clean up its cap table sooner.
On top of the put option, the group obtained a liquidation preference, meaning these Wall Street funds move to the front of the line in a sale, restructuring, or bankruptcy scenario. Taken together, the deal looks less like a typical late-stage tech round and more like structured equity or private credit inside a crypto company, giving investors upside exposure with contractually defined downside protection.
Why XRP Exposure Still Drives Ripple’s Risk Profile
Even with these protections, investors are not buying a cash-heavy industrial firm. Several funds reportedly assessed that around 90% of Ripple’s net assets are tied to its XRP holdings, which were valued at roughly $124 billion in July before the latest market pullback.
That concentration means Ripple’s balance sheet still swings with XRP’s price, even if the equity terms soften volatility for new shareholders.
Bloomberg notes that Ripple now holds record backing from Wall Street while still sitting on more than 30 billion XRP in treasury, subject to a release schedule from escrow. For the new investors, the structured terms function as a way to treat Ripple equity as a discounted, hedged way to own long-dated XRP exposure, rather than a pure bet on software revenues.
The flip side is that if XRP falls hard or stays depressed, these guarantees could leave Ripple with sizeable future obligations to investors who are legally entitled to those returns. That dynamic turns XRP price cycles into a funding-cost story for Ripple, not just a mark-to-market issue.
Ripple Expands Beyond Token Holdings
The company also keeps talking about a broader product stack beyond XRP. Ripple is building out its RLUSD stablecoin, acquiring businesses in prime brokerage, treasury management, and digital-asset infrastructure. The stated goal is to link existing institutional finance to tokenized settlement rails and payment corridors that run through Ripple software and, in many cases, XRP-related flows.
For traders watching XRP, the message is that Ripple’s equity story and XRP’s market story are now tightly fused but partially de-risked for the newest shareholders. The more value Ripple can drive from RLUSD, enterprise products, and on-chain finance, the less its fate rests entirely on the XRP treasury, even if that remains the anchor of the valuation today.
Related: Wall Street Backs Tokenization as XRPL Looks to Challenge Ethereum’s Lead
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