An IPO (also called an initial public offering) is the process by which a private company becomes a public company.
This "private company" does this by selling shares of its stock to the public, via a stock exchange like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the Nasdaq.
Okay, so why is any of this important?
It is important because there is now massive speculation that Ripple is about to announce something big at an upcoming party.
Let's see what the stock exchange, IPOs and Ripple have to do with one another.
Ripple is throwing a very big party soon.
According to reports, it is doing this to celebrate the historic partial victory obtained in mid-July against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and invariably bring the Ripple community closer together.
This is good, isn't it?
It is. The only issue is that there are now massive amounts of rumours and speculation flying around, that aside from the partying and dancing, Ripple may take the opportunity to announce something huge.
Keep in mind that speculation aside, Ripple is likely to announce something either way, in such a large gathering of Ripple investors and enthusiasts.
However, at the most forefront of these bits of speculation, are rumours that Ripple may announce the launch of an IPO very soon.
Think about this for a moment.
What would happen if Ripple suddenly became a public company, and had an influx of hundreds or even thousands of investors (all bringing billions into the fold)?
Take a guess. What might happen to XRP's price?
The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse reportedly stated that Ripple is considering an IPO after its legal issues with the SEC are handled.
Despite the silence of the company itself to date, rumours of a Ripple IPO continue to fly around.
Ripple hasn't yet submitted any IPO paperwork to begin with, making it improbable that it will be able to get and establish an IPO by the end of September.
However, when it comes to other things that can happen during this party, is Ripple announcing a settlement with the US SEC or a significant partnership between the company and another banking institution?
Note that HSBC, the largest British bank also partnered with XRP earlier this week, allowing its customers to pay mortgage bills or loans with the asset instead of currency.
If Ripple indeed is gunning for an IPO, the results on XRP would be massive.
For context, we can finally see Ripple break past $1 and stay there permanently.
Blockchain expert, Collin Brown even forecasts a 20X increase for XRP in this tweet.
Linda Jones, a well-known expert on Wall Street, also thinks buying Ripple equities at approximately $40 before the IPO would be a very smart move.
According to reports, Jones also mentioned Ripple's estimated intrinsic worth of $6.6 billion. In her opinion, Ripple is larger and more valuable than even Coinbase, which went public with an estimated value of $86 billion.
XRP, according to CoinMarketCap, is changing hands at about $0.501 with a $779 million 24-hour trading volume.
XRP is also showing a price increase of about $0.09% In the past 24 hours, and -3.5% over the last week.
XRP's volatility has been extremely low over the last few weeks, as the cryptocurrency consolidates around $0.5.
In the charts, we can see that XRP is on a descending trendline, and is only stopped from going further down by the $0.5 zone.
In all, if the $0.5 zone holds, XRP will remain poised to rally straight up to $1 again as it did in July, before considering further upside.
If Ripple indeed goes public and Collin Brown's prediction holds, we may see XRP hit at least $5.
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