According to a CNBC interview, Ripple revenue is unknown, but its CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC that some banks are paying the company millions of dollars for its software.
Ripple hasn’t released its fourth-quarter XRP report yet, but if it continued selling the same amount programmatically, as a percentage of overall XRP traded, it would have raised more than $75 million in the fourth quarter and another $150 million just in the first half of January. That doesn’t include money made from direct sales.
The company can dial back how much XRP it puts on the market, so there’s no reason to expect that it’s reeling in hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter. But just having that ability puts Ripple in a cash position that’s extremely rare — particularly for a start-up with just 170 employees — and gives it the flexibility to quickly bring in money for a pricey acquisition, fund an ambitious new project or invest in other start-ups.
Ripple executives just invested some of their XRP as part of a $25 million funding round in a storage start-up called Omni.
“In all likelihood, they need cash less than any other company on the planet,” said Timothy Enneking, managing director of Crypto Asset Management, a crypto hedge fund in San Diego with about $70 million in assets.
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Fast-read
- Ripple could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a month by selling a tiny fraction of its XRP holdings.
- The company put 55 billion XRP in an escrow account, which allows it to sell up to 1 billion every month.
- Ripple can sell XRP if it needs to make acquisitions or fund new projects.
