Wellgistics Lands $50M to Disrupt Healthcare Payments with XRP—Because Banks Move Like Dial-Up

Another day, another blockchain moonshot—but this one’s aiming for the $4 trillion healthcare sector. Wellgistics just pocketed $50 million to build an XRP-powered payment rail that promises to slash settlement times from weeks to seconds. Because nothing says ’efficiency’ like watching hospitals haggle with insurers over faxed invoices.

The pitch? Cut out the legacy banking spaghetti with Ripple’s ledger tech. No more ACH delays, no more SWIFT fees—just real-time transactions that even Medicare couldn’t slow-walk. Early backers include hedge funds who apparently think ’healthcare plus crypto’ is the ultimate contrarian bet.

Of course, regulators will have opinions. But if this works, it might finally give CFOs a reason to care about blockchain beyond Bitcoin’s price swings. Or it’ll join the graveyard of ’enterprise solutions’ that confused PowerPoint with adoption. Either way—entertaining.

Wellgistics Health to make XRP a treasury reserve asset

Interestingly, Wellgistics Health stated in its announcement that it will also make XRP its treasury reserve asset. While it did not explain how it intends to achieve this, the MOVE is quite surprising.

It marks the first time a publicly listed company will consider adopting XRP as a treasury asset. However, it only continues the trend of low-cap companies looking to cryptocurrencies as reserve assets, with Bitcoin being the preferred option.

Wellgistics had reasons to choose XRP for both payments and treasury. It pointed at the launch of the XRP futures contract by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, Mastercard highlighting the token as a bridge currency in cross-border transactions, and other developments as proof of XRP’s future potential.

However, adopting XRP has not impacted the company’s stock performance. WGRX was down 30.56% at the close of the market on May 8 and traded at $3. It has already seen a further drop to $2.872 in premarket trading, forcing its market cap to drop to $155.83 million.

XRP gains almost 10% in a massive day for altcoins

Meanwhile, XRP is up more than 8% in the last 24 hours as the token returned to a positive year-to-date performance after recent struggles. The token’s latest gains come amidst the general market pump that has seen Ether gain more than 20% in value, its biggest daily gain since 2021.

While several factors are responsible for the broad gains, XRP gains are also attributed to the recent announcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has settled its lawsuit with Ripple.

Under the settlement agreement, Ripple will pay $50 million to the SEC, less than the original $125 million that the court had ordered it to pay, and will get back the remaining $75 million; the SEC approval marks the end of the long-running legal battle over the status of XRP.

The settlement is still subject to the approval of the presiding judge, Analisa Torres, but criticism has already been attracted from SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw. Crenshaw criticized the deal in a statement, noting that it will affect the SEC’s ability to regulate crypto firms. Despite the criticisms, many expect the settlement to be finalized in the coming weeks.

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