Saudi Prince Backs First XRP Treasury Company With $100 Million War Chest

bitcoinistОпубліковано о 2025-05-29Востаннє оновлено о 2025-05-29

Анотація

Nasdaq-listed VivoPower International PLC has secured a $121 million Regulation S private placement that will fund what it calls the...

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

Nasdaq-listed VivoPower International PLC has secured a $121 million Regulation S private placement that will fund what it calls the world’s first publicly traded XRP-centric corporate treasury, a move spearheaded by His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Abdulaziz Al Saud, whose Eleventh Holding Company committed roughly $100 million to the round.

VivoPower Bets On XRP

In the subscription agreements, investors purchased 20 million new ordinary shares at $6.05—one cent above the previous close—giving VivoPower an immediate cash position that Executive Chairman Kevin Chin described as “transformational.” The prince’s check is the largest single outlay yet disclosed for an on-balance-sheet XRP reserve and vaults the London-headquartered sustainable-energy firm into digital-asset history as “the first public company executing on an XRP-focused treasury and DeFi strategy,” according to the company’s statement.

“We have been investors in the digital-asset sector for a decade and have been long-term holders of XRP,” Prince Abdulaziz said. “Having met with President Trump and his leadership group during their recent visit to Saudi Arabia, we believe the timing is appropriate for digital assets and blockchain technology to be rolled out in the Kingdom and we are delighted to be assisting VivoPower in this regard.”

Chin, himself an early adopter, told shareholders the influx “allows us to scale a publicly listed XRP-focused treasury company for the benefit of the community and VivoPower stakeholders alike,” adding that potential ledger-based payment rails could ease cross-border frictions faced by the firm’s electric-vehicle unit Tembo and power-to-X subsidiary Caret Digital.

Former Ripple board member and SBI Ripple Asia co-founder Adam Traidman, who joined VivoPower as chair of a new advisory board and invested personally in the placement, called the initiative “a forward-thinking move that reflects growing institutional conviction in real-world blockchain applications.”

The company intends to deploy “the majority” of proceeds to accumulate the token and to seed decentralized-finance projects on the XRP Ledger. Remaining funds will cut debt and supply working capital ahead of planned spin-offs of Tembo and Caret Digital, both targeted for completion before the end of the third quarter. Closing of the placement awaits a shareholder vote scheduled for 18 June 2025 and other customary conditions.

VivoPower highlighted language in the March White House executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and US Digital Asset Stockpile, contending that XRP “is expected to be one of five digital assets that will be accumulated by the US Government as part of President Donald Trump’s recently announced Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile.”

The announcement drew swift reaction on X. Analyst @nietzbux called the deal “one of the more bullish events in XRP history,” likening VivoPower to a “MicroStrategy for XRP.” Popular commentator @AbsGMCrypto added that the prince’s timing, following his meeting with President Trump, is “massive news.”

If shareholders ratify the raise next month, VivoPower will hold a nine-figure pool of the token on its balance sheet, providing the first real-time test of whether a single-token corporate treasury can reproduce—and perhaps broaden—the playbook that rewrote Bitcoin’s relationship with publicly traded capital.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.28.

XRP price
XRP price, 1-day chart | Source: XRPUSDT on TradingView.com
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.

Jake Simmons has been a Bitcoin enthusiast since 2016. Ever since he heard about Bitcoin, he has been studying the topic every day and trying to share his knowledge with others. His goal is to contribute to Bitcoin's financial revolution, which will replace the fiat money system. Besides BTC and crypto, Jake studied Business Informatics at a university. After graduation in 2017, he has been working in the blockchain and crypto sector. You can follow Jake on Twitter at @realJakeSimmons.

Пов'язані матеріали

After Aave's Exit and TVL's Sharp Fluctuation, Where Does MegaETH's Valuation Anchor Lie?

Following the withdrawal of Aave and a sharp drop in its Total Value Locked (TVL), the valuation of the high-performance DeFi blockchain MegaETH faces scrutiny. Once a highly anticipated project with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) reaching around $2 billion, MegaETH saw its TVL plummet from a May peak of $245 million to just over $30 million in July, a roughly 70% decline. Its native token, MEGA, currently trades around $0.048 with a market cap of approximately $54 million and an FDV of about $480 million. The report identifies a core vulnerability: MegaETH's TVL was heavily dependent on a single protocol, Aave V3, which at its peak contributed around 90% of the chain's TVL. A significant portion of this capital is attributed to leveraged yield-farming strategies involving stablecoins like USDe. When the profitability of these strategies diminished, capital rapidly exited, exposing the lack of diversified, sustainable activity. Three key mismatches between MegaETH's valuation and its fundamentals are highlighted: 1. **Valuation vs. Real Usage:** With an FDV of ~$4.8B but only ~$1M in annualized protocol revenue and ~2,600 daily active addresses, the valuation appears disconnected from current economic activity. 2. **Token Narrative vs. Ecosystem Reality:** Despite its DeFi narrative, nearly 80% of the chain's recent protocol revenue comes from a trading card game, Monster, not from core DeFi applications like Aave. The chain's native stablecoin, USDM, also shows low trading volume and a declining market cap. 3. **Short-Term Hype vs. Long-Term Delivery:** Initial hype from token generation, blue-chip integrations, and influencer support has faded. Major protocols like Uniswap now hold minimal TVL on the chain, indicating that early capital was largely transient and driven by incentives rather than organic demand. The situation reflects a broader market trend where investors are becoming less tolerant of valuations based on inflated TVL and narrative, demanding clearer evidence of sustainable transactions, revenue, and ecosystem development. While MEGA's price may experience short-term rebounds from market sentiment, a fundamental re-rating likely depends on the team's ability to convert its remaining resources into tangible, user-retaining applications and genuine ecosystem growth.

链捕手2 год тому

After Aave's Exit and TVL's Sharp Fluctuation, Where Does MegaETH's Valuation Anchor Lie?

链捕手2 год тому

Goldman Sachs In-Depth Report: Who Will Be the Long-Term Winners in China's AI Large Model Industry?

Goldman Sachs Report: China's AI Models at an Inflection Point China's open-source/open-weight large language models (LLMs) have reached performance parity with top global proprietary models, according to a Goldman Sachs report. This is driven by architectural innovations and higher parameter efficiency, allowing Chinese models to achieve comparable capabilities at 2%-10% the parameter size and significantly lower cost. The market is evolving into a two-tiered structure: a high-end segment (e.g., GLM5.2, Qwen3.7 Max) with premium pricing and a low-end, price-sensitive segment for global SMEs and individual users. Key points: * **Cost & Performance:** Innovations like Mixture of Experts (MoE) enable high performance with smaller models. Projects like Meituan's LongCat 2.0, trained on domestic hardware, highlight progress in tech self-sufficiency. * **Open-Source Strategy:** Most Chinese players use open-source/open-weight models for flexibility and ecosystem growth. However, Goldman notes this may underreport actual deployment and revenue. A shift toward "open-weight + community license" models with revenue sharing (e.g., MiniMax) could improve monetization. * **Market Shift & Global Expansion:** Enterprise AI adoption is shifting from "token maximization" to "ROI-first." International expansion, especially in non-US markets, is a major growth driver. Chinese models are increasingly available on global platforms like AWS Bedrock and Microsoft Copilot. * **Competitive Landscape:** Using a framework based on pricing power, cost advantage, and financial strength, Goldman identifies **Zhipu AI and DeepSeek** as the strongest in foundational text models, and **ByteDance** as the leader in multimodal/video generation. The report maintains Buy ratings on MiniMax and Kuaishou. * **Market Growth:** China's AI model API and subscription revenue is projected to grow from an estimated ¥35 billion in 2026 to ¥879 billion by 2030.

marsbit2 год тому

Goldman Sachs In-Depth Report: Who Will Be the Long-Term Winners in China's AI Large Model Industry?

marsbit2 год тому

Goldman Sachs Deep Dive Report: Who Will Become the Long-Term Winners in China's AI Large Model Industry?

Goldman Sachs Report: Who Will Be the Long-Term Winners in China's AI Large Model Industry? China's AI large model sector is at a historic inflection point. Goldman Sachs argues that the intelligence of Chinese open-source/open-weight models is approaching top global proprietary models. Rapid adoption by domestic enterprises and global SMEs is creating a data flywheel effect that will further drive model iteration. The evolution is summarized as moving from "DeepSeek's cost-efficiency moment last year to GLM's model-intelligence moment this year." Chinese models achieve near-state-of-the-art performance at significantly lower cost, primarily due to architectural innovations like Mixture of Experts (MoE) and higher parameter efficiency. Models like DeepSeek V4 Pro (1.6T params), GLM5.2 (0.7T), and MiniMax M3 (0.4T) are much smaller than global leaders. Recent advancements in coding capability are attributed to better data curation and RLHF. Landmarks like Meituan's LongCat 2.0, trained fully on domestic AI chips, demonstrate progress in hardware stack independence. The market is forming a "two-tiered structure." The high-end tier (e.g., GLM5.2, Alibaba's Qwen3.7 Max) prices around $1 per million tokens, about 10-25% of US top models, with estimated inference gross margins of 10-20%. The low-end tier (priced as low as $0.06-$0.2 per million tokens) targets price-sensitive global SMEs and individuals. MiniMax derives 60-70% of revenue overseas. Goldman forecasts China's AI model API/subscription revenue to grow from an estimated RMB 35bn in 2026 to RMB 879bn by 2030. Most Chinese players adopt open-source/open-weight strategies for deployment flexibility and community feedback, though this limits monetization as deployments on third-party platforms (e.g., Alibaba Cloud) may not generate direct revenue. A shift towards "open-weight + community license" models with revenue-sharing agreements (like MiniMax's approach) could improve unit economics. International expansion, particularly in non-US markets, is the key growth driver. The global enterprise AI paradigm is shifting from "token maximization" to "ROI prioritization." Chinese models are already hosted on major global platforms like AWS Bedrock and are under consideration for integration into Microsoft Copilot. Using a competitive framework based on pricing power, cost advantage, and financial strength, Goldman identifies the strongest players: In foundational text models, Zhipu AI (initiated coverage) and DeepSeek lead. In multimodal/video generation, ByteDance's Seed is the frontrunner, with Kuaishou's Kling and MiniMax's Hailuo also well-positioned. Goldman maintains a Buy rating on MiniMax, citing its attractive valuation.

链捕手2 год тому

Goldman Sachs Deep Dive Report: Who Will Become the Long-Term Winners in China's AI Large Model Industry?

链捕手2 год тому

Торгівля

Спот
活动图片