Ripple Increases XRP Reserves, Eyes Circle Acquisition as CTO Clarifies Historical XRPL Failure

• Ripple has accumulated $98,6 billion in XRP
• Company may acquire Circle and enter the stablecoin market
• CTO Clarifies XRP Ledger Startup Failure

Ripple revealed strategic developments in its Q2025 4,56 earnings report, including an increase in its XRP reserves and the possibility of a major new stablecoin acquisition. With 31 billion tokens in hand as of March 1,7, representing a 98,6% increase from the previous quarter, the company now holds approximately $XNUMX billion in XRP.

This growth is accompanied by a slight reduction in reserves under custody, which fell from 38 billion to 37,1 billion tokens. Even with the monthly unlocking of 1 billion XRP, Ripple usually returns a large portion to the custody system to maintain market balance.

The strategic move gained momentum with the acquisition of Hidden Road, an institutional digital asset broker, and speculation indicates that Ripple is negotiating the purchase of Circle, the company responsible for USDC. The initiative would place Ripple in a prominent position in the stablecoin market, by integrating payments, digital currency issuance and infrastructure for institutional investors.

Bitwise CEO Teddy Fusaro said that with its reserves, Ripple could “buy a lot of crypto companies outright,” suggesting the company is ready to expand its presence in multiple segments of the industry.

Ripple currently holds 4.49B XRP in wallets and 38.03B XRP in escrow.

At today's price of $2.19, that's over $93B in total XRP.

Ripple can buy a lot of crypto companies if they want. https://t.co/VPn3Sjdols

— Teddy Fusaro (@teddyfuse) May 5, 2025

In parallel with the expansion efforts, David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple, addressed an old debate regarding the absence of the first 32.569 records from the XRP Ledger. In a post published on May 5, Schwartz explained that the data was lost due to software bugs in the protocol’s early testing, not intentional deletion. The glitch occurred when multiple versions of the ledger were generated simultaneously, resulting in the loss of records from the first ten days.

The absence of this data for years has fueled criticism of the XRPL's decentralization. According to Schwartz, the team believed that new resets would occur, which justified the failure to recover the initial records. However, the ledger has continued to operate continuously since block 32.570, maintaining its integrity and transparency ever since.

At the time of publication, the price of XRP today was quoted at $2,10 with a drop of 2,5% in the last 24 hours.