CoinRoutes chief executive Dave Weisberger detonated a fresh round of anxiety in the XRP market on Monday when he asked, on Scott Melker’s podcast, whether Ripple Labs could finance a takeover of Circle “for $10 to $20 billion” without off-loading roughly $10 billion in XRP. “Who’s going to buy the $10 billion worth of XRP they would need to sell out of their treasury?” Weisberger said, warning that a sudden supply surge could overwhelm order books and “hammer the price.”

Is A XRP Sell-Off Conceivable?

Within hours, pro-XRP attorney Fred Rispoli fired back on X. “I love @daveweisberger1, but on this point he is mcgloning so hard,” he wrote, invoking Bloomberg strategist Mike McGlone’s reputation for bearish hyperbole. “Just based on what I’m getting offered for my Ripple shares on the secondary market, I don’t think Ripple would even have to sell one XRP to buy Circle.” Rispoli agreed that Ripple cannot raise $10 billion in pure cash, yet insisted the company could “easily afford the acquisition for a mix of cash and debt” and a heavy equity-swap.

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When Weisberger replied that Circle’s board would likely demand hard dollars unless it accepted Ripple equity or XRP “without a haircut,” Rispoli dug in. “No way to get $10B in cash—and $10B is too high anyway,” he wrote, citing late-2024 private-research valuations that placed Ripple at $15 billion excluding its ~36 billion escrowed XRP. If Circle’s price tag fell to $7–9 billion, he said, Ripple could close with “$1–3 billion cash on hand, a heavy stock exchange, and debt,” especially with “all that GCC money sloshing around crypto world right now.” Rispoli conceded it would be “a reach” but “doable without meaningfully selling XRP.”

Weisberger acknowledged the math—“That’s a reasonable analysis,” he wrote—yet cautioned that any price at the upper end of Rispoli’s range “could be some short-term pain for us XRP holders.”

Ripple’s tender-offer buyback in January 2024 valued the company at $11.3 billion, disclosing more than $1 billion in cash and about $25 billion in digital assets—mostly XRP—on its books. The firm still controls roughly 52 billion XRP (about 40 percent of supply), though 36 billion sit in timed escrow releases, limiting immediate access. At today’s $2.20 spot price, the spendable portion is worth a little under $35 billion, but moving even a fraction quickly would collide with thin venue depth—a point Weisberger hammered home.

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Ripple’s cash pile also shrank after its $1.25 billion purchase of prime broker Hidden Road in April, a deal settled with a blend of cash, equity and RLUSD stablecoins. That acquisition suggests the company prefers hybrid structures, bolstering Rispoli’s claim that Treasury XRP need not flood the market.

Is Circle Even For Sale?

The debate may be academic. Circle, issuer of USDC, has repeatedly declared it “not for sale” while marching toward a New York Stock Exchange listing that now targets a $7.2 billion valuation. Ripple’s rumored approach earlier this spring reportedly topped $5 billion, well below Weisberger’s stress case and within Rispoli’s “doable” band, but Circle rebuffed the talks and updated its S-1 two weeks later, enlarging the float rather than seeking a buyer.

Strategically, Ripple already fields its own dollar-token RLUSD, launched in January and positioned by president Monica Long as “complementary to XRP, not a competitor.” Absorbing USDC’s issuer would instantly rocket Ripple towards the size of Tether.

Even under Rispoli’s optimistic structure, Ripple might still need to liquidate several hundred million dollars’ worth of XRP for working capital and closing costs. At current volumes, unloading just 500 million XRP (≈ $1.1 billion) would equal half a week of global turnover—enough to distort price unless executed as private blocks.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.19.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

American rapper and record producer Kanye West has been in the news lately following his surprise appearance at the Grammys 2025. The hip-hop superstar has been actively posting on X, teasing a possible crypto collaboration with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

‘Crypto Yeezy’? 

In a February 7 post on X, West shared that he was offered $2 million to promote a fraudulent cryptocurrency project in his name. This revelation came amid the series of erratic, abusive, and somewhat disturbing posts made by the 47-year-old singer.

According to the chat screenshot, Kanye West was offered an up-front payment of $750,000 for the promotional contract. The arrangement would also include a subsequent payment of $1.25 million 16 hours after the billionaire rapper posts about the project.

The captured messages showed that West would then be supposed to announce to the public that his X account was hacked and the post was not from him. This scheme was projected to rob unsuspecting fans and crypto community members of “tens of millions of dollars.”

Kanye West mentioned that he refused the offer and cut his work relationship with the individual who proposed it. Despite the abusive and anti-semitic posts that followed this revelation, several members of the online community and crypto projects urged the Hollywood star to launch a coin.

Source: X

Most notably, Solana-based token generation and trading platform Pump.fun responded to one of West’s posts — about “channeling Andrew Tate”, encouraging him to launch his own cryptocurrency. However, Kanye West appears not to be considering the platform for his crypto endeavors.

In a post on X captioned “concerning crypto,” West shared another chat screenshot where he asked an anonymous associate to “resend that crypto connect.” This individual responded with “Brian Armstrong, CEO & Founder of Coinbase,” saying they would ask for the crypto founder’s phone number.

Celebrity Tokens Making A Return In 2025?

Kanye West wouldn’t be the first Hollywood celebrity to launch a token if he were to do so. Notably, rapper Iggy Azalea launched her Mother Iggy (MOTHER) token in May 2024, garnering significant attention at a time when celeb token launches were in fashion.

Other celebrities allegedly involved in token launches in the past year include Davido, French Montana, and Lil Pump. While Kanye West is one of the biggest names in the global music industry and pop culture, his erratic and controversial nature adds an interesting dimension to how investors will approach a token launched in his name.

The total crypto market cap on the daily timeframe | Source: TOTAL chart on TradingView

Featured image from Matt Winkelmeyer, chart from TradingView