Brad Garlinghouse. Source: a video screenshot, Youtube, Bloomberg

XRP remains unmoved as the market once again has been hit with speculations about Ripple‘s initial public offering (IPO). (Updated at 10:02 UTC: the new last paragraph, reactions have been added).

At pixel time (08:58 UTC), XRP, ranked 3rd by market capitalization, trades at c. USD 0.22 and is down almost 4% in the past 24 hours and 6% in a week, while all other major coins are also in red today.

Today, the market speculates that Ripple, an American blockchain company focusing on payments technologies, may have an IPO planned for this year.

There are reports going about the Cryptoverse that Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, confirmed, or at the very least implied, that this will be the case, during an interview at the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Though there are no interviews available to be seen yet, the reports seems to have originated from a tweet by the Senior Vice President of Product Management at Ripple, Asheesh Birla. He seems to imply that this is the case as well by quoting Garlinghouse’s alleged words.

“In the next 12 months, you’ll see IPOs in the crypto/blockchain space. We’re not going to be the first and we’re not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side… it’s a natural evolution for our company.” –@bgarlinghouse at #WEF20 — Asheesh Birla (@ashgoblue) January 23, 2020

No further details were provided. At the time of writing, Ripple hasn’t replied to our request for comment.

In either case, this wouldn’t be the first time Garlinghouse talked about an IPO. Back in September 2017, in an interview with CNBC, the CEO was asked about the pros and cons of a Ripple IPO, and the answer was: “It’s a flattering question to get. I want to make sure we have the right managerial maturity, infrastructure, and ability to forecast properly.” He added: “We’ve been around for 4.5 years. At some point it will make sense. Just not today.” Additionally, in 2018 as well, people online were speculating if a Ripple IPO is coming.

Watch the latest reports by Block TV.

Meanwhile, in December 2019, Ripple raised USD 200 million in Series C funding from a group of notable investors.

Why is an IPO important? IPO basically means “going public.” It’s a major process via which a privately held company issues shares of stock to the public for the first time, and that privately owned business becomes co-owned by public stockholders. While changing who manages and controls the company, an IPO also opens the doors to the public capital, and may in fact bring more exposure and credibility to that company – in this case Ripple. Ripple would likely be welcoming more institutional investors and expanding its offerings, such as the On Demand Liquidity (ODL) payment solution, while XRP could benefit from it as well if seen by stock investors as a potential investment. It’s a long process and it requires a permission by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell stock to the public.

The community has been discussing what this could mean for the company and for XRP. Though there is a chance of XRP benefiting from the IPO, many in the community seem to believe it’ll go in the opposite direction, such as trader Cantering Clark, who tweeted that Garlinghouse “just pulled the ultimate fade on XRP holders, adding “Oh, uh guys, yeah we are actually going to IPO now, and offer shares that carry equity..so,…uh….about those coins. (Obsolete).” Crypto trader Anondran seems to agree.

WTF . $XRP is planning to do an IPO??? As if printing worthless coins, pumping it and making billions of dollars wasn’t enough? Send this shitcoin to absolute depth of hell.https://t.co/VMFosCo1BZ — Anondran (@anondran) January 24, 2020

Meanwhile, as reported, looking into the new decade, it seems that token sales might decline in importance for crypto projects and that in their place traditional investment and venture capital will become more significant.

Here are a couple more reactions:

Guys. This means they go public. More publicity, move trusted investors in XRP. Stop the crying. — The Boss Mann Media (@bossmannmedia) January 23, 2020

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please NO IPO at least until we see 10 X- 50 X in XRP price. This was and is one of my biggest concerns about Ripple, but maybe unfounded-time will tell. I just don’t like the idea of other rich people deciding where Ripple is going :-( — Go green,ergo sum (@Gogreenergosum) January 23, 2020

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