Ripple Tests New Heights As Doubters Circle

Morning Report: What is the hottest cryptocurrency-like thing today? It’s not bitcoin, surprisingly enough.

When we last checked in on Ripple, a corporate token-powered method for sending money around the world, it was worth $73.97 billion.

Since then, Ripple’s value has only become more silly. This morning, here’s the count: $142,729,343,100, according to CoinMarketCap. However, there is some debate in the market as to whether that figure is conservative due to it being calculated only against “Circulating Supply.”

Factor in all all the potential XRP out there, circulating or not, and the figure is even higher.

All this leads us to a very silly situation in which Ripple and its XRP token is suddenly one of the most valuable things in existence. You can view that as either bonkers, or reasonable, but the math comes out a bit frothy, as this tweet points out:

Now that is taking into account the total value of XRP, not merely the circulating supply that CoinMarketCap counts. But the numbers would be very nearly as silly even at a slightly lower market cap figure.

In short, if Ripple doesn’t become the world’s next payment settlement method for large financial institutions to move money around the world, it’s probably a bit overvalued. And that means, and I may shock you here, that there is a bit of a bubble in the nascent crypto market.

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Spotify eyes direct IPO

• Music streaming service Spotify has confidentially filed to go public, according to media reports. But its reported decision to go public through a direct listing, foregoing a traditional IPO roadshow, has raised a number of questions, Crunchbase News reports.

MoneyLion raises $42M

• MoneyLion, a lending and savings app aimed at middle class consumers, has raised $42 million in a Series B round led by Edison Partners and joined by new and existing backers. The New York-based company, founded in 2013, has raised a total of over $67 million to date.

Microsoft buys Avere

• Microsoft is acquiring Avere Systems, a Pittsburgh-based provider of enterprise file storage technology, for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2008, Avere previously raised about $86 million in venture funding.