Public companies now hold over 1 million Bitcoin worth $110 billion on their balance sheets, but only early adopters with disciplined strategies have seen major gains.
Rumors are circulating that BlackRock has partnered with Ripple to tokenize real-world assets on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). There has been no confirmation from either party, suggesting that these rumors may not be accurate.
In an X post, XRP influencer JackTheRippler said that there are rumors that BlackRock is about to announce a partnership with Ripple to tokenize assets on the XRPL. Other XRP influencers, such as CryptoSensei and Bale, also shared the rumor, sparking excitement among XRP community members.
However, BlackRock and Ripple have yet to issue an official announcement about the rumored partnership, suggesting these claims may not be true. However, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink confirmed that they are building their own technology to tokenize several of their funds and expand their crypto offerings.
The BlackRock CEO noted that tokenization can help crypto-native investors access more traditional assets. He further remarked that if they could tokenize an ETF, they could get these investors into the more traditional long-term retirement products. Notably, the asset manager already has products, such as its tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, which runs on the Ethereum network.
It is worth mentioning that Ripple already partnered with the fund’s manager, Securitize, to enable off-ramp support for BlackRock’s BUIDL using their RLUSD stablecoin. This has so far been the closest to a partnership between Ripple and BlackRock amid rumors that the asset manager plans to tokenize assets on the XRP Ledger.
However, Ripple has so far helped advance upgrades to the XRP Ledger, which could compel institutions like BlackRock to tokenize their funds on the XRPL. This has included the launch of the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard, which is designed to simplify the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs).
While rumors of a Ripple and BlackRock partnership do not appear to be accurate, there are other recent developments that provide a bullish outlook for XRP. This includes Ripple’s expansion into the corporate treasury markets through the $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury, a provider of treasury management systems.
As part of the deal, Ripple and GTreasury will focus on enabling customers to carry out real-time cross-border payments using Ripple’s payment solution, in which XRP serves as the bridge currency. Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, Ripple is also working to raise up to $1 billion to establish an XRP treasury company. The crypto firm plans to contribute some of its XRP holdings to set up the firm, while the proposed $1 billion is expected to be raised through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $2.35, down over 2% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
🧰 Public Companies Quietly Build A Serious Bitcoin Stack
Corporations just set a major new record.
One that Bitcoin maxis will be happy to celebrate.
Corporate balance sheets now hold ~1.04M BTC (~$117B), marking a fresh record.
Public-company holders jumped 40% from last quarter to 172 firms, with the cohort adding ~193,000 BTC QoQ.
MicroStrategy (rebranded “Strategy”) leads the list with ~640,031 BTC, followed by Mara (53,250 BTC) and XXI (43,514 BTC).
Tesla is holding in 11th with 11,509 BTC despite not adding for years.
Several newer entrants are joining and climbing the list, specifically Bullish (24,300 BTC) and Trump Media (15,000 BTC).
“We’re seeing a growing wave of public and private companies increasing their Bitcoin holdings… not just a hedge, but a long-term bet on digital assets as a core treasury reserve,” Bitget’s CEO Gracy Chen told Decrypt
“Their raison d’être is to acquire crypto assets… funded by security issuance in the public market,” Chung added. “As long as there is appetite for their security issuance in the public market, they will continue this effort.” – Peter Chung, Head of Research at Presto Research, commenting on DATs leading the way
This is how a permanent bid forms.
Public companies move by slowly and by policy.
These decisions involve boards approval mandates, treasury teams weighing in, and purchases repeat quarter after quarter.
The impacts of institutions piling into Bitcoin:
Point 3 is arguably the most important, but one we haven’t quite had time to see come to fruition. The more major players that buy and hold Bitcoin, the easier it is for others to follow suit.
Point 1 is also very important to internalize. It’s very possible that the days of extreme Bitcoin volatility are behind us, and it just grinds up on a steadier basis with more shallow pullbacks for the next 5-10 years.
Boring, predictable – but still offering huge growth.
I think most would take that outcome—institutional buyers included…
A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs
In Memes
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
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