- Ripple’s $1.25B acquisition of Hidden Road boosts institutional DeFi adoption globally.
- Ripple USD (RLUSD) enables seamless cross-margining between digital and traditional markets.
- Ripple leverages Hidden Road’s infrastructure to enhance cross-border payments and custody solutions.
Ripple bought Hidden Road for $1.25 billion in a record deal among the largest ever in the digital assets industry. The acquisition makes Ripple the pioneer crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker uniting traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Ripple Expands Prime Brokerage Reach with Hidden Road Purchase
In a Ripple post on X, the firm acknowledged its $1.25 billion acquisition of high-quality prime broker Hidden Road. Hidden Road clears $3 trillion annually, offering clearing, prime brokerage, and financing services across foreign exchange (FX), digital assets, and fixed income markets.
Ripple aims to bolster these services, using Hidden Road’s platform to enhance institutional access to digital assets. The acquisition comes with Ripple’s commitment to injecting billions of dollars into Hidden Road’s infrastructure, allowing for immediate scalability and service expansion worldwide.
RLUSD Stablecoin Powers Cross-Margining Between Digital and Traditional Assets.
Ripple’s stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), plays a key role in the expansion of Hidden Road’s services. In Ripple’s report, the company stated that RLUSD will enable easy cross-margining between traditional finance markets and the digital asset world.
The cash-backed stablecoin will be used as collateral for prime brokerage products. Additionally, Hidden Road will take its post-trade operations onto the XRP Ledger (XRPL), optimizing operation efficiency while minimizing costs, making XRPL an institutional DeFi preferred blockchain.
Ripple Improves Cross-Border Payment and Custody Solutions
Ripple’s acquisition of Hidden Road also fortifies its cross-border payments platform, Ripple Payments. Leveraging Hidden Road’s infrastructure and liquidity, Ripple plans to optimize cost and liquidity in its payment solutions, further enhancing its capability to serve institutional clients.
With more capital, licenses, and risk capital, Ripple will also expand its custody solutions for digital assets. Through this partnership, Ripple will be able to offer institutional customers secure, scalable digital asset management solutions, which will lead to even more blockchain technology adoption.
