The chairman and CEO of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings Inc., Yoshitaka Kitao, has made an extremely bullish forecast about the XRP price and Ripple Labs as a company. As is well known, Kitao is one of Ripple’s biggest supporters and, remarkably, a former board member of the fintech (replaced by Adam Traidman).
In a Japanese speech in front of an audience, Kitao made several statements that are likely to make the XRP community sit up and take notice. According to Kitao, the ongoing legal battle between Ripple Labs and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the classification of XRP as an unregistered security could end as early as the next few weeks.
Ripple about to go public?
In addition, the CEO of SBI Holdings stated that he expects XRP prices to rise sharply if the court rules in favor of Ripple. He sees this as an event that could boost not only the price of XRP, but its overall adoption in the digital finance world, saying (translated from Japanese):
If the conclusion is drawn and XRP is a coin, then I think it’s going to be a very expensive price.
Even more surprising to the XRP community, however, is Kitao’s statement that he expects Ripple Labs to go public (IPO) once the ruling is handed down by Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District Court of New York in the United States. Kitao said:
As the conclusion [of the trial] positive, I think management will go public immediately.
Such a move could lead to significant financial gains for Ripple stakeholders like SBI Holdings, Kitao said, whether they decide to sell or keep their XRP holdings.
While the speculation of a Ripple IPO may come as a surprise to many, the rumors are not new. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse himself said during an interview at the 2020 World Economic Summit about an IPO: “We won’t be the first, and we won’t be the last.”
At the time, the Californian fintech was not yet in litigation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Remarkably, Kitao claimed in April 2021, during a presentation of SBI’s quarterly results, that the SEC lawsuit was Ripple’s last hurdle ahead of an IPO.
XRP Price Ahead Of A Breakout Due To Hinman Docs?
As early as tomorrow, Tuesday, June 13, the XRP price could experience a major uptick. According to former federal prosecutor James K. Filan, the unsealing of internal SEC Hinman documents in the Ripple case could happen. The Hinman documents may shed light on Ethereum’s (ETH) previous classification as non-security and mark a huge partial victory for Ripple.
At the time of writing, XRP changed hands at USD 0.5169, up 2.4% in the past 24 hours. Currently, the main resistance is at $0.54. If this resistance is cleared by the XRP bulls, the annual high of March 29 at $0.5850 could be within reach.
Featured image from iStick, chart from TradingView.com