During a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse discussed the company’s growth opportunities. Despite the crypto market’s downturn, Garlinghouse talked about future mergers and acquisitions.
‘We are more buyer than seller’
Speaking at the WEF conference in Davos, Brad Garlinghouse told the CNBC that Ripple Labs has a very strong balance sheet. Garlinghouse said the company is in a growth phase and may be acquiring a number of companies.
“We are now in a growth phase where I think we are the buyer rather than the seller”Garlinghouse said. He further noted that he expects an increase in mergers and acquisitions in the blockchain industry:
I think there will be a surge 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. As that unfolds, we can consider that sort of thing.
– Said Garlinghouse.
A large number of mergers and acquisitions in the crypto world
There have been a number of acquisitions in the crypto space in the second half of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. For example, Coinbase bought the firm ‘Fairx Exchange’ in January 2022 and Opensea also acquired ‘Dharma Labs’ that month.
In February, ethereum software company Consensys announced the acquisition of the Mycrypto wallet. Later, in March, fractional investment firm Public announced its acquisition of Otis, a digital collectibles and NFTs startup.
In April, the payment network, Bolt, bought Wyre for $1.5 billion. In addition, Huobi Global announced in late May that it has acquired Latin American crypto exchange Bitex. FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried also spoke out about spending billions on mergers and acquisitions.
There is a lot of room for growth in the crypto space and we are looking at many different niches.
– Said Garlinghouse.
Meanwhile, XRP has the sixth largest market cap of the more than 13,400 crypto assets currently in existence. However, year-to-date, XRP has lost 59.2% against the US dollar and 34% in the past 30 days.
XRP also didn’t see an all-time high (ATH) seven months ago like many other digital assets in November 2021. XRP’s last recorded ATH was more than four years ago on January 7, 2018. This was after the 2017 crypto bull run. .
XRP is down more than 88% since that ATH and its market value represents 1.49% of the total $1.28 trillion value of the crypto economy.