What a difference 12 months can make in the world of crypto.

Where a year prior there had been some doubt about the crypto payments firm’s ability to scale and win over traditional investors, the apprehension has quickly disappeared.  

Channelling Tom Brady

For Ripple and its XRP token, 2025 could well go down as its breakout year.

Not only did the XRP price soar to an all-time high of $3.65, but the company also achieved unprecedented success in other spheres of the blockchain universe.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse went so far as to liken his firm’s performance to the on-field exploits of legendary football quarterback Tom Brady.

Amazon-like ambitions

Garlinghouse has every reason to smile, especially since the success occurred on several fronts.

Ripple’s strategic acquisitions have proved a masterstroke.

Chief among these is its buyout of global prime brokerage and credit network Hidden Road, subsequently renamed Ripple Prime.

The move has served to bolster the Ripple’s institutional trading, liquidity access and implementation.

Another coup is GTreasury, a platform that specialises in strengthening management of on-chain treasury of enterprises.

Rail, a stablecoin payments platform that reduces the need for businesses to hold crypto directly, has also been brought into the fold.

Jake Clever, chief executive of Digital Ascension Group, the largest registered investment advisor (RIA) in the cryptocurrency sector, suggests that Ripple is on track to build the “Amazon of financial infrastructure”.

Sweet victory

A big turning point for Ripple has come in the form of a victory in its four-year court battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC had alleged that the sale of XRP violated securities legislation and after a raft of appeals and counter-appeals the original ruling in favour of Ripple was upheld.

This decision has cast off a lot of investor scepticism, not only around Ripple but the entire cryptocurrency industry.

Breaking ground

Giving the company further impetus in 2025 was the performance of its Ripple USD stablecoin.

Less than a year after debuting in the markets, it was added to the Securitize tokenisation platform.

This platform is backed by none other than global asset management giant BlackRock and enables users to exchange shares of tokenised money market funds for Ripple USD.

This was not all.

Towards the end of the year, Ripple USD was approved as a payment services currency by Singapore, one of the world’s most active cryptocurrency markets.

Thousands of kilometres away in the UK, Ripple also was granted an electronic money institution licence to make further inroads in another global financial capital.

British markets traditionally are extremely regulated so the acceptance of XRP by the Financial Conduct Authority is a major development in terms of international expansion.

Watch out, world

Crypto competitors will be on high alert after Ripple’s outstanding year.

What will keep them up at night is that what unfolded in 2025 may well be just the beginning.

Garlinghouse has stated that Ripple is taking a long-term approach to what crypto-based assets can deliver.

And it is clear that Ripple will stop at nothing to ensure it explores every avenue, both now and in the years to come.