Ripple Labs seeks to raise $1 billion to buy XRP

Ripple Labs is seeking to raise at least $1 billion (about 1.419 trillion won) to purchase large amounts of its affiliated virtual asset (cryptocurrency) XRP.

On the 16th (local time), Bloomberg reported that the funds will be deposited into a newly established Digital Asset Treasury (DAT). According to multiple sources, Ripple plans to use a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) for this fundraising and is also considering contributing some of its XRP holdings as equity.

Ripple has not issued an official statement on the matter, and the transaction terms are still under negotiation. If the fundraising is completed successfully, it will create the largest Digital Asset Treasury centered on XRP to date. Ripple currently holds 4.74 billion XRP (about $11 billion) in its wallets, and an additional 35.9 billion XRP are in an escrow lockup scheduled to be released monthly.

This plan came just a week after the crypto market experienced a sharp decline. Selling pressure triggered by escalated trade tensions between the U.S. and China caused structural unease across the market, and Bitcoin (BTC) also fell more than 3% that day, trading in the low $100,000 range.

Despite such market uncertainty, Ripple has continued aggressive moves. On the same day Ripple announced it would acquire corporate treasury management software provider 'GTreasury' for $1 billion. The company described the acquisition as a "strategic move to help corporate treasury officers access digital assets such as tokenized deposits and stablecoins."

XRP ranks 5th among global virtual assets with a market capitalization of $138 billion and has risen 13% year-to-date, following Bitcoin (up 16%). Currently XRP is trading in the $2.34 range on Binance's Tether (USDT) market, down 2.75% from the previous day.