Ripple Chief Says Billion-Dollar Crypto Startup Will Launch IPO But Timeline Is Uncertain

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says it’s only a matter of time before the San Francisco payments startup goes public.

At the World Economic Forum’s annual meetup in Davos, Switzerland, Garlinghouse told a panel he expects crypto initial public offerings to pop up over the next year, and Ripple will be on the “leading side” of a new phase for the cryptocurrency industry at large.

“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.”

Ripple recently raised $200 million in a Series C funding round that valued the company at $10 billion.

Garlinghouse also talked about the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), and the third-largest coin by market cap, XRP.

Ripple owns more than half of the total supply of XRP, and although Garlinghouse says he believes Bitcoin has a bright future as a store of value, he touted the speed and efficiency of XRP.

“I’m bullish on BTC as a store of value, but not for payments. You don’t want to use BTC at Starbucks b/c by the time you get your coffee, it’ll be cold…

We’re here at Davos where climate change is a big topic. One-percent of global energy consumption is Bitcoin mining – that is stunning. Running a validator on the XRP Ledger is like running a light bulb.”

According to an online tool from the University of Cambridge, the Bitcoin network currently represents about 0.39% of the world’s total electricity consumption.

Square Crypto, which is owned by Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, recently announced plans to release a developer kit for the Lightning Network, which runs on top of the Bitcoin network. The scaling solution is designed to address skeptics like Garlinghouse by making Bitcoin transactions faster, cheaper and more energy efficient – good enough for a cup of joe.

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