Ripple has officially completed its acquisition of the global prime brokerage firm Hidden Road, unveiling the newly branded entity Ripple Prime as a comprehensive institutional trading, financing, and clearing solution, the company announced on Friday.
The transformation marks a significant milestone for Ripple, with Ripple Prime’s business volume tripling since the initial acquisition reveal earlier this year. Currently, Ripple Prime serves over 300 institutional clients and has processed more than $3 trillion across multiple asset classes and markets.
Ripple Prime is designed as a one-stop prime brokerage that integrates a wide range of financial products, including digital assets, foreign exchange (FX), exchange-traded derivatives, over-the-counter (OTC) swaps, fixed income clearing, repurchase agreements (repo), and precious metals. The service emphasizes strong operational standards, citing compliance with SOC 2 Type II, along with features such as real-time risk management and cross-margining capabilities.
For institutional investors and market makers, a prime brokerage acts as an intermediary that consolidates critical trading functions. Instead of dealing separately with various exchanges, custodians, and financing sources, clients access markets and leverage capital through a single desk that manages trading, financing, clearing, and collateral aggregation. Traditionally, this approach reduces complexity, cuts friction, and optimizes balance-sheet efficiency.
Ripple is bringing this consolidated brokerage model to the digital asset ecosystem, blending it with traditional FX and derivatives services. This development aligns with Ripple’s broader institutional strategy beyond payments and custody, extending into full-service broker-dealer offerings that meet the expectations of sophisticated market participants.
The announcement follows Ripple’s initial disclosure on April 8, 2025, regarding its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road. At that time, Ripple positioned the transaction as making it the first crypto-focused company to fully own and operate a prime brokerage with a multi-asset global footprint. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse highlighted the moment as “an inflection point for the next phase of digital asset adoption.” Hidden Road’s founder, Marc Asch, emphasized that the combined capabilities and expanded licenses would “unlock significant growth.”
One notable aspect of Ripple Prime’s service is its role in expanding the use of RLUSD, Ripple’s U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. Ripple revealed that some derivatives clients already maintain RLUSD balances and utilize the stablecoin as collateral within Ripple Prime’s financing products. This integration could accelerate RLUSD adoption by embedding it deeply into institutional trading workflows.
Ripple designates BNY Mellon as the primary reserve custodian for RLUSD and points to a strong “A” rating from research firm Bluechip, issued in July 2024, which reviewed the stablecoin’s stability, governance, and asset backing. These endorsements aim to build institutional confidence in RLUSD as a reliable liquidity instrument.
Looking ahead, Ripple Prime is positioned to serve as an all-encompassing venue for market access, financing, and risk controls, with the added possibility for clients to leverage Ripple’s stablecoin as collateral. However, the broader migration of assets and collateral to Ripple Prime will depend on market dynamics, institutional demand, and competitive performance versus existing prime brokers in crypto and FX markets.
Ultimately, Ripple Prime represents a strategic extension of Ripple’s fintech platform, marrying traditional prime brokerage functions with digital asset innovation to support institutional adoption at scale.
