Ripple just raised $500 million, pushing its valuation to $40 billion—but it’s not as simple as it looks.

Fortress and Citadel led the round, marking the largest fundraising since 2019, with its valuation quadrupling in six years. The numbers look good, but the core question is: can this money actually buy market competitiveness?

RLUSD (Ripple’s stablecoin) has indeed taken off, surpassing $1 billion in 330 days and ranking 11th on DeFi Llama. But USDT ($183 billion) and USDC ($76 billion) are still dominating. Moreover, the DeFi TVL on the XRP public chain is only $79.59 million, which is over 1,000 times less than Solana’s $10.1 billion.

The most interesting development is the Mastercard partnership—Gemini credit card settlements are switching to the XRP Ledger, using RLUSD to achieve 3-second finality. This is a real-world application, not just talk on paper. Plus, the XRP spot ETF is expected soon (market predicts a 99% chance of approval within the year), and Ripple’s application for a Fed banking license is under review, showing Ripple is indeed playing a big game.

But honestly, stablecoins are a red ocean, public chain competition is fierce, and cross-border payments are still dominated by traditional systems. Whether this $500 million can really drive growth ultimately depends on actual user numbers and transaction volume. This is still the story phase; the real test is yet to come.