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❌ Ripple says no to the IPO era

❌ Ripple says no to the IPO era

$500M in private capital locked in. PLUS: XRP ETF uncertainty, stablecoins print billions on Ethereum, OpenAI wins the IPO buzz, and the CLARITY Act heads to a Senate vote.

Cryptopolitan News
January 07, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Ripple shuts door on IPO after a $500M raise

It has been years of speculation, but the cards are on the table now, Ripple Labs came out swinging.

It’s not going public.

Not in 2026. Not anytime soon.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of Ripple’s $500 million close, among the largest private crypto rounds in recent memory.

And where everyone is running for the public markets, from Anthropic to OpenAI, Ripple is (for now) driving in the opposite direction, more content with going back to build behind the scenes.

So, what changed?

Ripple’s pivot arrives in the nick of time, too; the IPO window is only starting to crack open for tech.

OpenAI, valued at over $100B, is gearing up for an IPO.
SpaceX is reportedly considering a spin-off IPO for Starlink.

And even companies from the firm’s own generation of crypto-native startups: Circle, one of the most well-funded and high-profile companies to emerge during that wave; Bitmain, which backs Block.one; and Kraken are choosing public markets.

But Ripple?

It’s taking the cash and maintaining control.

❝

Going public is not on our horizon. We’re working on what’s next, building a financial infrastructure stack.

— Ripple spokesperson

Where’s the money going?

Ripple has been hiring like crazy, growing aggressively in Asia, LatAm and the Middle East, where regulators move faster and tokenization is more widespread.

Helped by its new war chest, it will fund:
Scaling RLUSD, Ripple’s regulated stablecoin
Growing channels in Japan, Singapore and UAE
Creating new tokenization rails with the XRP Ledger
More M&A: probably around custody, stablecoin infra, or tokenized assets

Why it matters:

After coins, the next wave of crypto will focus on infrastructure.

Ripple has a lot riding on being an enabler of real-world finance, not a price-chasing token issuer. It aims to “power cross-border liquidity, tokenized securities, as well as regulated stablecoins.”

And it’s accomplishing all of this without having gone public. No quarterly earnings calls. No retail drama. Just deep focus.

🧠 Cryptopolitan’s Take

This is a playbook shift.

IPOs are a validation for most crypto businesses. But not so much for Ripple; those are distractions.

Sitting on $500M of fresh capital, it doesn’t need the public markets to fuel its growth. It now ranks among a small list of crypto unicorns that would rather scale in private than under public scrutiny (a list that includes ConsenSys and Kraken).

More importantly, it signals confidence. Ripple thinks it can triumph in payments, stablecoins and tokenization, without Wall Street’s blessing.

📊 Poll: Ripple raised $500M and rejected an IPO. Smart move?

📊 Market Watch

❌ WisdomTree abandons XRP ETF effort

Only weeks after XRP ETFs surpassed $1.25B in inflows WisdomTree withdraws its application without any forewarning. XRP fell 3% on the news, and was trading at around $2.24 at the time of writing. The action has set off rumors that the firm is making way for a larger player, perhaps BlackRock.

Meanwhile, rival issuers including Franklin Templeton and Bitwise keep gaining ground.

🪙 Stablecoins account for $5B on Ethereum in 2025

Issuers of stablecoins made $5B in revenue from Ethereum deployments last year, grew with increasing on-chain volumes and reserve yields. Ethereum is still the leading stablecoin settlement layer with more than $8T in Q4 volume and 65% of total activity.

Stablecoins, also backed with Euro are rising too, further fortifying ETH’s Financial Infrastructure Moat.

👑 Retail flips to OpenAI in Altman vs. Musk IPO faceoff

Elon’s SpaceX may be valued at $800B, but retail investors are betting on OpenAI to win the IPO race. Altman’s startup is leaner, revenue-generating and focused, whereas SpaceX is burning money and trailing political baggage.

Now that OpenAI is aiming for a $1T listing, the AI trade may be transitioning from hype to hard numbers.

👀 Are you watching?

CLARITY Act heads to Senate floor for a vote next week

Sen. John Kennedy a said the Senate Banking Committee is going to vote next Thursday, Jan 16., to advance the long-delayed CLARITY Act “come hell or high water.”

The bill seeks to divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC, with the CFTC assuming authority over spot markets. But several issues remain unresolved:

Regulating yield-bearing stablecoins
How to categorize DeFi protocols
Whether Trump’s personal holdings of crypto present conflicts of interest

The House has already passed a measure, and the Senate is under pressure to adopt a bill before progress is set back by the threat of a government shutdown on Jan 30.

The industry has a 50–60% chance of the bill passing into law this year. Should it pass, it would be the second significant crypto law, following on from July 2025’s GENIUS Act.

🗓️ Mark your calendar:

Thursday, Jan 16 Senate crypto market structure markup vote

📌 Full explainer