Webus International Bets Big on XRP: $300M Treasury Move Targets Frictionless Cross-Border Payments
Another day, another corporate crypto play—but this one’s got teeth. Webus International just dropped $300 million into XRP, betting the token’s liquidity can slice through cross-border payment bottlenecks like a hot knife through bureaucratic butter.
Why it matters: While traditional finance still fusses over SWIFT delays, Webus is all-in on blockchain’s promise of near-instant settlements. No word on whether they’ll also use the treasury to short bank stocks.
The kicker: If this works, it’s a blueprint for enterprises tired of watching 3% of their profits evaporate in forex fees. If it fails? Well, at least it’s not another stablecoin experiment.
Broad initiatives
The proposed reserve represents the first of three initiatives financed by the package. The others include the development of a proprietary blockchain infrastructure and the acceleration of overseas expansion.
Management did not specify a timeline for closing the facilities or purchasing XRP. Still, it emphasized that non-equity instruments give Webus latitude to adjust the reserve size according to market conditions.
Webus indicated it will couple the reserve with in-house wallets that process passenger fares and immediate driver refunds, a model it says aligns with the company’s vision of “borderless travel.”
As part of the same announcement, Webus renewed a multi-year partnership with Tongcheng Travel Holdings, one of China’s largest online travel agencies.
The deal extends “Wetour x Tongcheng” inter-city charter lines across China, pairing Tongcheng’s 240 million annual paying users with Webus’s vehicle network.
Zheng said the domestic alliance supplies data and route density, while XRP-based payments WOULD remove currency-conversion friction for international trips and driver payouts.
Company executives described the financing plan as non-binding until definitive agreements are signed and due diligence hurdles cleared.
XRP treasury momentum
Webus’s disclosure arrived one day after clean-energy group VivoPower International said it had secured commitments for a $121 million private placement to build its own XRP treasury.
VivoPower will sell 20 million ordinary shares to institutional digital asset investors and strategic partners led by Saudi investor Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud.
The company plans to allocate the proceeds to XRP accumulation, infrastructure for the XRP Ledger, and debt reduction.
Although several public companies hold Bitcoin (BTC), treasuries denominated in XRP remain uncommon. Both Webus and VivoPower cited XRP’s low-fee settlement layer and integration with the XRP Ledger as motivation.
