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Ripple has entered a definitive agreement to acquire global prime brokerage platform Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, the enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions provider announced in a statement.
The acquisition will enable Ripple to rapidly scale Hidden Road’s institutional services across a wide range of asset classes, including foreign exchange (FX), digital assets, and derivatives. Hidden Road, known for its fast growth in the prime brokerage space, offers institutions a comprehensive suite of services encompassing clearing, prime brokerage, and financing.
"We are at an inflection point for the next phase of digital asset adoption – the US market is effectively open for the first time due to the regulatory overhang of the former SEC coming to an end, and the market is maturing to address the needs of traditional finance," Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said in the statement. "With these tailwinds, we are continuing to pursue opportunities to massively transform the space, leveraging our position and the strengths of XRP to accelerate our business and enhance our current solutions and technology."
The acquisition also highlights the growing utility of Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple’s enterprise-grade USD-backed stablecoin. Hidden Road will leverage RLUSD as collateral across its prime brokerage products, making it the first stablecoin to support efficient cross-margining between the digital asset space and traditional markets.
Furthermore, Hidden Road will migrate its post-trade activity to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), showcasing XRPL’s potential as a scalable and cost-effective blockchain solution for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi). Ripple also sees opportunities to optimize costs and liquidity within its cross-border payments solution, Ripple Payments, and to provide custody services to Hidden Road’s institutional clientele.
"With new resources, licenses, and added risk capital, this deal will unlock significant growth in Hidden Road’s business, allowing us to increase capacity to our customer base, expand into new products, and service more markets and asset classes. Together with Ripple, we’re bringing the same level of trust and reliability that institutional clients are accustomed to in traditional markets — designed and optimized for a digital world,” Marc Asch, founder and CEO of Hidden Road, said.
Ripple, which holds more than 60 regulatory licenses globally, participated in Hidden Road’s Series B funding round and is already a customer of its platform. The deal is expected to close in the coming months, pending regulatory approvals, marking a significant consolidation within the institutional digital asset infrastructure landscape.
