XRP, the cryptocurrency issued by US fintech firm Ripple, could see massive price gains if CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s plan to spend $1 billion on acquisitions proves successful.
The plan to spend up to a billion dollars from the company’s cash reserves was announced by Garlinghouse in an on-stage interview at the Dubai Fintech Summit last week, where the CEO made it clear that Ripple is ready to grow.
“We have more than a billion US dollars in cash on our balance sheet, we want to deploy that to grow both organically internally but also inorganically through acquisitions,” Garlinghouse said from the stage.
The CEO further pointed to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as countries that are attractive places for Ripple to look for companied to acquire.
“[…] we’ll make acquisitions in markets that are friendly to these technologies […] You had representation from the UAE, you had representation from Switzerland, these are countries that are providing the clarity for entrepreneurs to invest and that allows a company like Ripple, that is larger, [to invest],” he said.
XRP price
If Garlinghouse’s plan proves to be successful and more companies start using XRP for liquidity in cross-border payments, there is reason to believe that XRP would also rise in price.
During the massive bull market of 2017 and early 2018, XRP traded well above the $3 mark as optimism around the token’s use case surged.
However, the positive sentiment later vanished, and XRP traded as low as $1.15 during the subsequent bear market, before it once again hit north of $1.8 in the latest bull market.
If Ripple manages to cement its position as the leading provider of cross-border crypto payments, prices like those seen in the 2021 bull market could perhaps again be within reach.
UAE a top crypto jurisdiction
The UAE, and Dubai specifically, is widely considered to be among the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions today, with the government there generally taking a positive approach to crypto.
The UAE’s rise as a top crypto jurisdiction has been helped by growing frustration among industry leaders in the US that their own country is moving in the wrong direction in terms of crypto regulation.
Earlier this month, Binance’s Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillman criticized crypto regulations in the US, saying enforcement of crypto rules have “been very confusing over the past six months.”
Meanwhile, Saqr Ereiqat, co-founder of venture-building firm Crypto Oasis, was quoted by the media as saying that the UAE checks all the boxes in terms of countries’ “regulatory infrastructure, digital infrastructure and its ability to attract a global pool of talent.”
“The UAE’s regulatory framework is more streamlined and business-friendly compared to the complex and fragmented regulatory environment in the US,” Ereiqat said at the time.
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