XRP Soars as Ripple Settles with SEC and Acquires Hidden Road

XRP's Stellar Performance

XRP is absolutely crushing it, skyrocketing as the top-performing major cryptocurrency in the last 90 days, according to Ripple's fearless leader, Brad Garlinghouse. This beast of a rally kicked off right after Ripple agreed to cough up $50 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle their beef.

The SEC Showdown

Remember back in December 2020 when the SEC came at Ripple with guns blazing, claiming they were selling XRP as an unregistered security? That legal battle turned into one of the most epic showdowns the crypto world has ever seen. Fast forward to 2023, and the court threw Ripple a bone with a partial win: institutional sales were cool, but selling XRP on public exchanges? Nope, that was a no-go according to securities laws.

Ripple had stashed away $125 million in escrow, just in case they had to pay up big time.

Garlinghouse's Take

"We're snatching back most of that cash, plus the interest it racked up along the way," Garlinghouse declared in a fiery Fox Business interview. "This just proves that the old-school SEC under Gary Gensler was totally off the rails. Big props to the new crew at the SEC and in the White House for setting things straight."

Ripple's Political Play

Just like other crypto heavyweights like Coinbase, Gemini, and Uniswap, Ripple played the political game hard, backing President Donald Trump. Last year, they dropped millions on his campaign and even threw at least $5 million in XRP tokens at his January 20th inauguration party.

The Trump administration's SEC wasted no time in dropping a bunch of lawsuits and investigations against crypto companies as a massive thank-you. Trump's allies are shouting from the rooftops that this move shows they're all about creating a clearer regulatory playing field, but critics are calling it straight-up crypto-crony capitalism.

Expansion and Acquisitions

With the regulatory storm finally clearing up, Ripple is ready to go big. They just dropped a cool $1.25 billion on their biggest acquisition yet, snagging prime broker Hidden Road.

Garlinghouse made it crystal clear that this move "would've been a total no-go a year ago" under what he saw as a hostile regulatory environment led by former SEC chair Gary Gensler.

"This opens the door for even bigger players like BlackRock and the Wall Street giants to jump into the market in a way they get, with a safer prime broker to handle transactions and a beefier balance sheet to back it up," he explained.

The Hidden Road acquisition bumps Ripple's employee count up to around 1,100 people. Garlinghouse pointed out that for years, they had to look outside the U.S. for talent because of all the regulatory uncertainty.

"As a proud U.S. citizen from Kansas, I want to hire people right here at home. We've got some of the best talent in the world, but it just didn't make sense to invest in a market where we couldn't even sign customers," he said.

New Products and Future Plans

Ripple's not stopping there. They've just launched a new stablecoin, complete with a New York trust license from the New York Department of Financial Services.

Looking ahead, Garlinghouse is betting on even more regulatory clarity in two big areas: stablecoin legislation and market structure bills. He's confident that federal stablecoin legislation will start moving "sooner rather than later."

Bullish on Bitcoin

When it comes to Bitcoin (BTC) price predictions, Garlinghouse thinks $200,000 by the end of the year is "not unreasonable." That's a bit higher than his previous forecast of $175,000. He's all in on this bullish outlook because of the massive shift in the U.S. regulatory approach: "People are sleeping on how the biggest economy in the world, the U.S., went from fighting us tooth and nail to giving us a major boost."

XRP's Upward Trajectory

XRP has been on a tear over the past year, with a massive rally kicking off right after Donald Trump's re-election in November. Buckle up, because this ride is just getting started!