Market Crypto Biz: How Ripple Quietly Convinced Wall Street 2025

Ripple’s post-SEC rebound is drawing Wall Street backing, including a $40 billion valuation deal with downside protection— and some investors betting on XRP.

It has been a long and arduous journey for Ripple. After emerging from a multiyear battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the blockchain-based payments and infrastructure company is pressing ahead with broad ambitions to unify custody, treasury and prime-brokerage services, each underpinned by blockchain technology and stablecoins.

Despite the bruising legal fight and the reputational damage that came with it, Ripple has still managed to win over some of Wall Street’s biggest players.

This week’s Crypto Biz looks at how Ripple secured a striking $40 billion valuation, and why some of its backers are quietly placing bets on an XRP (XRP) surge.

Elsewhere, WisdomTree rolled out a new options-income strategy through a tokenized fund, Bitwise shifted its crypto index fund to the NYSE Arca, and Jack Mallers’ Twenty-First Capital made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

In November, Ripple raised $500 million at a valuation of $40 billion, attracting investors including Citadel Securities, Fortress Investment Group and funds tied to Brevan Howard, Pantera Capital and Galaxy Digital. New reporting now sheds light on how the deal came together.

According to Bloomberg, Ripple secured commitments by offering investors substantial downside protection. The terms allowed participating funds to sell their shares back to Ripple after three or four years for a guaranteed annualized return of 10%. Ripple also retained the right to repurchase those shares during the same window, at an annualized return of 25% for investors.

Ripple has since broadened its strategy, pushing deeper into the stablecoin market and pursuing acquisitions in brokerage and treasury management. Still, sources told Bloomberg that some backers were motivated not only by the company’s expansion plans but also by expectations for the future performance of XRP.

Asset manager WisdomTree is bringing a complex options strategy onchain with a new tokenized fund designed to track the price and yield performance of the Volos US Large Cap Target 2.5% PutWrite Index. The fund, called the WisdomTree Equity Premium Income Digital Fund, is now available under the token ticker EPXC and the fund ticker WTPIX.

The Volos benchmark is modeled on a “put-writing” strategy, in which the index sells cash-secured put options to genera

Source: CoinTelegraph