[anf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(company)#Funding

Are they profitable? How can this kind of thing be justified to shareholders?

[ericflo]

One or their problems right now is their foundation owns too much of their own currency, which is a risk to their entire ecosystem. Without looking into the details, donating the money seems like a really great way to build good will while de-risking the ecosystem.

[freeloop10]

Ripple placed most of their coins in escrow: https://ripple.com/insights/ripple-to-place-55-billion-xrp-i...

They don't need to derisk their ecosystem.

[giarc]

Further down in the wiki. I don't know what Ripple Labs is, but perhaps the donation is part of this 80 billion XRP??

>Of the XRP80 billion that Ripple Labs was gifted, Ripple follows a distribution strategy that encompasses payments to business partners such as gateways, market makers and charitable organizations.[24]

[gnicholas]

I wondered the same thing. Perhaps part of the justification is the branding benefit from the positive publicity?

[trophycase]

Their currency is worth billions

[anf]

Billions of USD in digital coins they themselves created, right? So this $29M came from the shareholders, or from the coin-holders?

[Zarath]

It comes from whoever will buy the coins, presumably.

[anf]

So the same people who could potentially be victims of fraud will now be recovering their investment from school children. Keeping it classy, crypto.

[jcoffland]

There is a big difference between being worth billions and having a market cap of billions.