NEW YORK, July 13, 2026, 15:07 (EDT)
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the firm thought about closing and giving its XRP reserves back to shareholders after the SEC lawsuit in 2020. If Ripple had picked that plan, it would have handed shareholders token reserves now valued at almost $40 billion.
This matters now since the stockpile is close to the $40 billion valuation from an outside round in November. That’s about 80% of the $50 billion valuation Ripple tied to its March buyback program. The company said it held 37.656 billion XRP as of June 30. XRP traded at $1.059 Monday afternoon.
The shutdown plan would have mostly helped Ripple’s backers, not regular XRP holders. Holding XRP doesn’t give investors any equity, dividends, voting power or rights to Ripple’s assets — a line that gets blurry when news for the company is seen as a trigger for the token.
Escrow, or tokens held in smart contracts and set to unlock over time, makes up the bulk of Ripple’s reserves. Out of the total, just 5.056 billion XRP — equal to around $5.35 billion at Monday’s price — is not locked. Garlinghouse said Ripple has spent about $150 million on legal defense. With the court fine, the total expected outlay climbs to $275 million.
| Balance-sheet marker | Amount | Value or comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Ripple’s total XRP | 37.656 billion XRP | $39.88 billion |
| XRP locked in escrow | 32.600 billion XRP | $34.52 billion |
| XRP out of escrow | 5.056 billion XRP | $5.35 billion |
| Defense plus penalty (est.) | About $275 million | 0.69% of gross XRP value |
“The government had infinite power and resources,” Garlinghouse said about the decision he and Chris Larsen faced. They pushed on, keeping hundreds of jobs at risk even though they had no idea how it would turn out. “I’m glad in retrospect, but that was not obvious at the time,” he said. Incrypted
A federal judge gave a split ruling. Ripple’s XRP sales on public exchanges didn’t count as securities, but institutional sales through direct contracts did. After appeals from both Ripple and the SEC were dropped in August 2025, the case left Ripple with a $125.04 million fine and an injunction still standing.
Ripple’s headline price now tops two public rivals. At $50 billion from its recent private buyback, it’s about 21% above Coinbase Global’s NASDAQ:COIN market cap and close to triple what Circle Internet Group NYSE:CRCL trades at. The picture isn’t exact, since Ripple’s number comes from a private tender, but the others trade in public markets.
| Company | Reference equity value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Ripple | About $50.00 billion | Company said it’s buying its own shares in a private deal |
| Coinbase Global NASDAQ:COIN | $41.43 billion | Current market cap |
| Circle Internet Group NYSE:CRCL | $16.74 billion | Current market cap |
Gregoire le Jeune, CEO of Darika Labs, said Ripple looks “clearly in a better position than Circle” thanks to its treasury and bigger offering of financial services. Eliézer Ndinga, global head of research at 21Shares, said “an easier proxy for valuation is gross revenue” but added that “more details are needed” for investors to figure out how XRP relates to Ripple’s revenue and equity value. DL News
The $39.9 billion number isn’t a liquidation value. About 87% of Ripple’s reserve is locked in escrow, and selling that many tokens could push XRP down long before shareholders see anything like the current total. Pro-XRP lawyer Bill Morgan has argued that Ripple “should release more of the 1 billion each month and not lock so much back in escrow,” so the pace of future supply is still up for debate. If XRP keeps falling, Ripple’s balance sheet shrinks and so does its spending power. crypto.news
At Monday’s price, the four-year legal defense and penalty make up less than 0.7% of Ripple’s total XRP reserve. That math doesn’t mean Ripple shares are necessarily a bargain. But it does point out why investors should split the private company’s operating business from its big, volatile token stash—one that management at one point looked at returning and quitting entirely.
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