Ripple has successfully completed its acquisition of global prime broker Hidden Road and rebranded the entity as Ripple Prime. This new division is designed to operate as a comprehensive trading, financing, and clearing desk exclusively for institutional clients. According to Ripple’s announcement, Ripple Prime has witnessed a significant surge in growth, reportedly tripling its business since the acquisition was first announced. The unit now serves over 300 institutional customers and has cleared more than $3 trillion across various markets.
Ripple Prime positions itself as an all-in-one solution that encompasses a wide array of services, including trading in digital assets, foreign exchange, exchange-traded derivatives, over-the-counter swaps, fixed income clearing, repos, and precious metals. The company emphasizes its compliance with SOC 2 Type II standards, alongside real-time risk management capabilities and cross-margining features.
In simpler terms, a prime broker acts as a one-stop intermediary for funds and market makers. Rather than managing multiple exchanges, lenders, and custodians, clients can streamline operations through a single desk that provides market access. This integration allows for extended financing—meaning trades do not need to be fully pre-funded—while also handling post-trade clearing and settlement. It can aggregate collateral and manage risk across multiple positions, which is beneficial for improving balance-sheet efficiency in traditional finance. Ripple aims to bring this same model to the digital asset space, incorporating foreign exchange (FX) and derivatives into its offerings.
This development follows Ripple’s announcement on April 8 regarding the intent to acquire Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, an acquisition that marks Ripple as the first cryptocurrency firm to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime brokerage. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse highlighted the strategic importance of this acquisition, signaling a pivotal moment for the next phase of digital asset adoption. Marc Asch, Hidden Road’s founder, indicated that the merger would enable substantial growth by adding necessary licenses and capital for risk management.
Furthermore, Ripple suggests that the prime-brokerage unit will enhance the utility of RLUSD, its U.S. dollar stablecoin, which has already seen use among certain derivatives clients as collateral for Ripple Prime’s products. Ripple has previously designated BNY Mellon as the primary reserve custodian for RLUSD, which received an “A” rating from the researcher Bluechip in July 2024 for its stability, governance, and asset backing.
The launch of Ripple Prime represents a significant expansion of Ripple’s institutional services, venturing beyond payments and custody to provide a more extensive range of broker-dealer-like offerings that large trading firms require. However, the potential for large-scale migration of assets and collateral will hinge on factors like client demand, market conditions, and Ripple Prime’s competitive performance against existing prime brokers in both the cryptocurrency and FX markets. Currently, Ripple is marketing itself to institutions as a singular venue for access, financing, and risk management, coupled with the potential for using its stablecoin as collateral.
