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Ethereum's resilience amid market uncertainty. Ethereum's Pivotal Week: Whale Bets Big on ETH Ahead of FOMC, Can it Hold $3K? ⚖️ The cryptocurrency market is bracing for a highly anticipated week, with all eyes on the Federal Reserve's upcoming FOMC meeting. As rate expectations and liquidity signals hang in the balance, Ethereum (ETH) has remarkably managed to cling above the $3,000 threshold for four consecutive days. This fragile stability is a testament to underlying resilience, yet an palpable sense of fear persists, leaving many investors on edge about ETH's immediate future. Amidst this atmosphere of caution, a significant on-chain event has captured the market's attention: the notorious BitcoinOG, a whale known for accurately shorting the market during the turbulent October 10 crash , has made a dramatic pivot. Data from Looko...

Ripple Crypto Deal Hits $40 Billion: Wall Street Firms Secure Protections in XRP Bet

Wall Street's big bet on Ripple signals a new era of institutional crypto investment.
Wall Street's big bet on Ripple signals a new era of institutional crypto investment.

Ripple has become the most aggressively structured bet in blue-chip crypto after a group of major Wall Street firms wired about $500 million into the company in November, lifting its valuation to roughly $40 billion and making it one of the highest-valued private players in the sector. Bloomberg reported that Ripple’s share sale brought in some of the biggest names of Wall Street but only after investors secured a suite of downside protections.

Wall Street Goes All-In On Ripple

The investor line-up reads like a who’s who of modern market structure: Citadel Securities, Fortress Investment Group, Marshall Wace, Brevan Howard–linked vehicles, Galaxy Digital and Pantera Capital all participated, treating the round at least as much as a structured credit trade as a venture bet.

Investors sought robust protections, treating the Ripple deal as a blend of venture capital and structured credit.
Investors sought robust protections, treating the Ripple deal as a blend of venture capital and structured credit.

According to multiple accounts of the deal, several funds underwrote Ripple essentially as a concentrated exposure to XRP itself. Bloomberg’s reporting states that multiple investors concluded at least 90% of Ripple’s net asset value was tied to XRP, with the company controlling about $124 billion of the token at market prices in July.

That XRP cushion has already been tested. XRP is down roughly 40% from its mid-July peak and about 15–16% since late October, yet even after that drawdown, estimates in deal coverage still put the company’s XRP treasury in the tens of billions of dollars, with a large portion locked in escrow and released gradually over time.

Key players in the traditional finance world, including Citadel Securities and Galaxy Digital, participated in Ripple's significant funding round.
Key players in the traditional finance world, including Citadel Securities and Galaxy Digital, participated in Ripple's significant funding round.

The protection that Wall Street insisted on has become the defining feature of the deal. Investors secured the right to sell their shares back to Ripple after three or four years at a guaranteed 10% annualized return, unless the company has gone public by then.

Ripple, conversely, can force a buyback in those same windows only by delivering about 25% annually. On top of that, the funds negotiated a liquidation preference, giving them priority over legacy shareholders in a sale or insolvency.

The XRP token's recent performance faces scrutiny following the substantial Wall Street investment.
The XRP token's recent performance faces scrutiny following the substantial Wall Street investment.

The numbers involved are non-trivial. FinTech Weekly estimates that if the put option were exercised in full at the four-year mark, Ripple’s cash outlay would approach $700 million–$730 million, irrespective of operating performance or token prices at the time. Those obligations sit alongside an already heavy capital agenda: Ripple has agreed to buy prime-brokerage platform Hidden Road for roughly $1.3 billion and corporate-treasury specialist GTreasury for about $1 billion, while also confirming it has repurchased more than 25% of its outstanding shares.

Banks and trading desks are now treating the November round as a new reference point for crypto credit risk. FinTech Weekly reports that “those terms are now shaping how banks, funds, and trading desks assess Ripple’s balance sheet, exit risk, and future liquidity,” with the three- and four-year exit windows being modeled explicitly alongside XRP price scenarios and rate curves.

Ripple’s management maintains there is “no plan, no timeline” for an IPO, but the structure of the deal effectively date-stamps its private capital: either the company lists or finds new liquidity on favorable terms before the put windows open, or it must fund a secured, fixed-return exit for some of the most sophisticated players on Wall Street.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.0498.

💬 Investment Wisdom
"Invest in a company not just because it’s cheap, but because it’s a great business."
Warren Buffett

Crypto Market Pulse

December 9, 2025, 10:10 UTC

Total Market Cap
$3.16 T ▼ -1.97% (24h)
Bitcoin Dominance (BTC)
56.98%
Ethereum Dominance (ETH)
11.88%
Total 24h Volume
$112.01 B

Data from CoinGecko

This post builds upon insights from the original news article. Original article.

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