Ripple Just Became a Global Prime Broker — and XRP Is at the Core of It All

• Ripple has completed its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road and has now been rebranded as Ripple Prime.
• Ripple’s control over the infrastructure effectively puts XRP and RLUSD on equal footing with established asset classes.

On April 8, Ripple Labs, the developer of cryptocurrency XRP, announced one of its biggest moves in the digital asset industry, the acquisition of Hidden Road, a non-bank prime broker for $1.25 billion, positioning it as the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker in the digital asset markets.

Ripple has now completed the acquisition, and Hidden Road is now rebranded to Ripple Prime. The broker will now provide traditional prime brokerage services, including clearing, financing, and brokerage across digital assets, foreign exchange, derivatives, swaps, fixed income, and more.

The platform already processes over $3 trillion in transactions annually and serves a network of more than 300 institutional clients worldwide.

Ripple’s Expansion Strategy

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, emphasized the company’s growth and long-term vision in a statement saying,

In May 2023, Ripple acquired Swiss custody-technology provider Metaco for approximately $250 million. This deal gave Ripple access to Metaco’s institutional custody solutions and key banking relationships. Ripple expanded further in February 2024 with the acquisition of Standard Custody & Trust.

As reported by CNF, Ripple then agreed to purchase stable-coin payments platform Rail in August for around $200 million, integrating stable-coin payments infrastructure into its stack.

Most recently, Ripple’s planned $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury aims to give clients access to the multi-trillion-dollar global repo market via prime broker Hidden Road, and allow customers to get higher returns on short-term assets.

Garlinghouse added,

The Hidden Road purchase will focus on expanding the utility of Ripple’s stablecoin, RLUSD. The stablecoin RLUSD now underpins collateral arrangements for prime brokerage services, while derivatives clients increasingly hold reserves in it. A key advantage of RLUSD is its adherence to rigorous regulatory standards.

Despite this, RLUSD’s market position has slipped within the $316 billion stablecoin sector, now with a market capitalization of $898 million, representing roughly 0.3% of the total market. Still, Ripple aims to position RLUSD as a challenger to established players like Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.

Community Concerns

Ripple’s presence in traditional finance has reignited long-standing questions about XRP’s actual utility and long-term value within the company’s expanding ecosystem. Some community members, like user Fishy Catfish, have voiced skepticism, asking, “How does the XRP token become more valuable from any of this?”

The focus of Ripple Prime’s operations appears to center on enhancing the utility and reach of RLUSD, rather than directly benefiting XRP itself.

Catfish points out that 90% of RLUSD is issued on the Ethereum (ETH) network, meaning it operates largely outside the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Furthermore, XRP’s only built-in value mechanism —token burn from transaction fees —has had minimal impact, with just 0.014% of the total supply burned since 2012, offering little incentive value.

Lastly, profits generated from RLUSD are retained by Ripple Labs rather than distributed to XRP holders, leading the community to conclude that RLUSD’s growth and Ripple Prime’s integration efforts offer virtually no direct benefit to XRP or its market value.