Ripple (XRP) will go public after the lawsuit is filed, says the company’s largest shareholder

Ripple (CRYPTO: XRP), the San Francisco-based payment company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, is planning to go public, according to its largest outside shareholder SBI Holdings Inc. (TYO: 8473).

What happened: Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of Japanese financial services giant SBI Group, announced Ripple’s future IPO plans during a call to showcase earnings on Wednesday.

“After the current lawsuit, Ripple will go public. The current CEO wants to do that. Chris wants to do that, ”said Kitao, referring to Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, and Chris Larsen, Executive Chairman.

Kitao also stated that SBI’s investment in the company would pay off after a public offer, as SBI is Ripple’s largest outside shareholder.

The Japanese company has been a long-term strategic partner who has made a number of investments in Ripple over the years. In 2019, SBI, along with Tetragon and Route 66 Ventures, was part of a $ 200 million Series C financing round that was worth $ 10 billion to Ripple.

Why it matters: In 2020, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, predicted that crypto IPOs would be part of the next step in the evolution of the industry.

“In the next 12 months, IPOs will be displayed in the crypto / blockchain area. We won’t be first and we won’t be last, but I expect to be at the top … it’s a natural evolution for our company. “

The first crypto firm to go public Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) ended its first day of trading as a public company valued at $ 85.7 billion.

See also: XRP price jumps by over 30% after another SEC filing in the Ripple process

Whether or not Ripple is next in line could depend largely on the outcome of its ongoing lawsuit with the SEC. So far, the native crypto token XRP has risen 455% since details of the lawsuit were first released in December 2020.

Price action: XRP was trading at $ 1.59 at the time of writing and is up over 13% in the past 24 hours.