Ripple acquired prime broker Hidden Road. This acquisition aims to strengthen the position of XRP, turn XRP Ledger (XRPL) into a key platform for tokenizing real-world assets (RWA), and expand the use of the RLUSD stablecoin in the institutional space.
Ripple, one of the largest providers of enterprise digital asset solutions, announced the acquisition of crypto-friendly prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion.
A prime broker is a financial intermediary that provides institutional clients, such as hedge funds, investment funds, and large investors, with a range of services related to trading on financial markets, including clearing and settlement, securitization, margin financing, and more.
The press release notes that Hidden Road serves more than 300 institutional clients and clears transactions totaling over $3 trillion annually, facilitating the integration of the crypto market with traditional finance.
According to David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple, Hidden Road processes over 50 million transactions daily in the TradFi market, clearing more than $10 billion in transactions. Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, added that the broker will now move part of its clearing operations to XRP Ledger (XRPL), with the RLUSD stablecoin being used as collateral in brokerage services, reducing settlement times from the traditional 24 hours to just a few seconds.
Ripple expects that using the prime broker will expand the scope of real-world asset tokenization on the XRP Ledger network. According to data from RWA.xyz, the volume of tokenized assets on XRPL is about $50 million.
Ripple plans to continue developing as a private company. Monica Long, President of Ripple, shared at the Paris Blockchain Week conference that the company will focus on organic growth and expanding influence through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The first such strategic move was the acquisition of Hidden Road, which became possible due to positive changes in U.S. regulatory policy.
Garlinghouse believes that the shift in the U.S. regulator’s position opens up new opportunities for the development of the digital finance market, and Ripple will be at the forefront of the industry’s transformation and integration with traditional markets, offering innovative digital asset solutions for institutional investors.
Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ended lawsuits against several major crypto companies and plans to review several regulatory guidelines concerning cryptocurrency assets.
