Ripple is quietly rewriting the rules of the game: from crypto world players to Wall Street newcomers.

After observing Ripple's recent actions, I feel that this company is playing a very big game.

What is the logic behind the $4 billion crazy acquisition?

This year, Ripple spent nearly $400 million on a series of acquisitions—Hidden Road ($1.3 billion) and GTreasury ($1 billion). This is not playing around; it is systematically building a complete financial ecosystem.

Brad Garlinghouse bluntly stated at Ripple Swell 2025: We are no longer a crypto company; we are building “Finance 2.0”.

In other words, Ripple aims to transform XRP from a speculative asset into financial infrastructure.

The True Ambition of XRP: Not a Coin, but a Settlement Layer

This is the key - Ripple's goal is to authorize the XRP Ledger to traditional financial institutions, becoming the underlying infrastructure for cross-border settlement and liquidity management.

Imagine this:

• Cross-border transfers of US dollars and euros? Settle in seconds with XRP Ledger.
• Company fund management? Use GTreasury for management, settle with XRP on the backend.
• Institutional-level OTC trading? Direct integration with Ripple Prime

This is driving the value of XRP through real-world applications, not through speculation. Garlinghouse has made it clear that the engine of growth is real use cases, not speculation.

Another question: regulation

A $4 billion investment, a valuation of up to $40 billion, and a funding of $500 million - investors have already placed their bets. But the “clarity bill” in the U.S. has been stalled, which is the biggest variable.

Garlinghouse acknowledged that “without regulatory clarity it will be difficult,” but he bets that Ripple's positioning is deep enough that policymakers will catch up in due time.

How to view this operation?

What is Ripple doing when BTC and ETH are soaring to the sky? It is using capital and acquisitions to root itself in traditional finance. This strategy may not be appealing in the short term, but in the long run, if XRP really becomes an institutional-level settlement layer, it will no longer be a “cryptocurrency” but rather financial infrastructure.

The value is completely different.