Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the San Francisco-based payments company plans to consider acquiring other crypto projects in the future.
Garlinghouse tells CNBC Ripple has a “very strong balance sheet” and is at the stage of its growth where it’s more likely to be a buyer than a seller.
“I would say there’s a lot of growth in crypto, and we are looking at a lot of different segments in crypto for growth. Some of that, obviously, we will build internally – the carbon credit initiative is something we’ve kicked off internally – but we’ve invested in over 30 or 40 companies around the crypto ecosystem, and we’ll continue to look at opportunities to grow through external acquisitions also.”
The CEO thinks there will be a rise in mergers and acquisitions throughout the crypto space.
“I think there’ll be an uptick in [mergers and acquisitions] in the blockchain and crypto space. We haven’t seen that yet. But I think that’s likely in the future. And I certainly think as that unfolds, we would consider things like that.”
Garlinghouse adds Ripple also plans to evaluate the possibility of an initial public offering (IPO) after it concludes its ongoing lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The San Francisco payments company isn’t the only crypto firm thinking about acquisitions: Brett Harrison, president of the crypto exchange FTX.US, also tells CNBC that his firm plans to examine the market “for potential merger and acquisition opportunities” that will aid in securing new users and/or regulatory licenses.
“We’re doing that globally, in places like in Japan, Australia, in Dubai, different places where we’ve been able to either partner with local companies or sometimes do acquisitions to be able to get licenses that we need.”
FTX CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried told Bloomberg last week his company has set aside over $2 billion from fundraising events to finance investments in other firms.
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