Blockchain Capital says it accepted $25M of Ripple's XRP coin to go alongside its newly raised $150M fund
Context & Ripple Effects
Weeks after closing what was then the largest crypto-focused vehicle — a $150M fourth fund — Blockchain Capital has taken a quarter of it in kind: $25M of XRP from Ripple, a company it already backs. That is a structural break from Ripple's earlier fundraising arc, where capital flowed the other way through conventional equity rounds like its $28M Series A and its bank-backed $55M round with Standard Chartered and Accenture Ventures.
The move makes Blockchain Capital one of the first established funds to hold a portfolio company's native token as fund capital, foreshadowing the ecosystem-funding playbook Ripple ran afterward — the $100M Forte-run games fund and the $50M university research initiative — both deployed in XRP rather than cash.
First-order effects
- Blockchain Capital's limited partners now carry direct XRP price exposure inside a fund whose other assets are equity stakes, tying fund returns to a single volatile token alongside its Ripple and Coinbase positions.
- Ripple effectively recycles its own token as investor capital, conserving cash while deepening alignment with one of its longest-standing backers.
Second-order effects
- Other crypto-native companies gain a template for paying investors in their own tokens, pressuring rival funds to decide whether to accept token commitments or insist on fiat to keep their books legible.
- Because Ripple can fund ecosystem programs like the Forte games grants out of XRP holdings, its distribution strategy competes on token liquidity rather than corporate cash flow.
Third-order effects
- If token-denominated LP commitments spread, the line between venture fundraising and token treasuries dissolves, and fund performance becomes inseparable from the market cap of the assets their portfolio companies issue.
- That entanglement invites closer scrutiny of how such commitments are valued and disclosed — a governance question the industry had not yet faced when this deal was struck.
The trend: Crypto venture is shifting from pure equity investing toward funds holding their portfolio companies' native tokens as core capital, fusing fund economics with token markets.