Ripple CEO predicts the growth of the crypto market capitalization above $5 trillion by the end of the year

What’s new? The head of the fintech company Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, has allowed the possibility that the capitalization of the crypto market will double by the end of this year and exceed $5 trillion. In an interview with CNBC, he said he is “very optimistic” about macroeconomic trends in the crypto industry, such as the emergence of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). BTC ETFs have attracted real institutional investment into the industry for the first time, he said. As of April 8, the crypto market capitalization is $2,78 trillion (data from the CoinGecko aggregator).

Material by CNBC

What else is known? According to Garlinghouse, another macro factor that could lead to an increase in market capitalization is the halving of the Bitcoin network, as a result of which the issue of the first cryptocurrency will be halved on April 20.

Halving is code’s embedded cut in half of the reward to miners for a mined block on the blockchain, which occurs approximately every four years. Initially, miners received 50 BTC; on November 28, 2012, the number dropped to 25 BTC, on July 9, 2016, to 12,5 BTC, and on May 11, 2020, to 6,25 BTC. In April 2024, the award will be cut to 3,125 BTC

The head of Ripple also expects more regulatory clarity in the US once the new administration takes office following the presidential election.

“The US is still the largest economy in the world, and it’s unfortunately been one of the more hostile crypto markets,” Garlinghouse noted.

Ripple continues its legal battle with the US securities regulator SEC over the status of XRP, officials believe institutional sales of the asset are an unregistered offering of securities.

Ripple CEO calls SEC a “hostile regulator”

Brad Garlinghouse noted that the company is considering going public outside the US

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The Ripple-issued token XRP occupies the seventh place of the overall cryptocurrency ranking with a capitalization of $33,6 billion and is trading at $0,6087, having added 1,8% over the day. At the same time, the rate of the asset has fallen by 2,9% over the past month.

Earlier, the head of Ripple also stated that regulatory clarity for stablecoins in the United States will come in 2024. Garlinghouse noted that this market “surprised people in some ways in terms of solving a real need”

In early April, Ripple announced the launch of its own US dollar-pegged stablecoin with 100% collateralization in dollar deposits. It will initially run on the company’s XRP Ledger-developed blockchain and Ethereum’s ERC-20 network.