Benzinga | Apr 30, 2021 12:28PM EDT

Ripple (XRP) Will Go Public After Lawsuit, Says Company's Largest Shareholder

Ripple (CRYPTO: XRP), the San Francisco-based payments company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, plans 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, revealed Ripple's future IPO plans during an earnings presentation call 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 Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen.

Kitao also stated that SBI's investment in the firm would pay off following a public offering given the fact that SBI is Ripple's largest external shareholder.

The Japanese company has been a long-term strategic partner making a series of investments in Ripple over the years. In 2019, SBI was part of a $200 million Series C funding round, along with Tetragon and Route 66 Ventures which saw Ripple valued at $10 billion.

Why It Matters: In 2020, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicted that crypto IPOs would be part of the next step of the industry's evolution.

"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."

The first crypto company to go public, Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN), ended its first day of trading as a public company with an $85.7 billion valuation.

See also: XRP Price Jumps Over 30% After Another SEC Motion In Ripple Lawsuit

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

Price Action: XRP was trading at $1.59 at the time of writing, surging over 13% in the past 24-hours.