Ripple Prime, also known as Hidden Road Partners CIV and now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ripple, appeared in a directory of a DTCC subsidiary with a “first trade date” of March 2. Mistaken members of the XRP community quickly declared the listing as proof that massive settlement volumes are migrating to the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
They haven’t.
The Depository Trust Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has approximately $100 trillion in assets under custody and processes $4 quadrillion worth of annual transaction settlements.
Its numbers were so impressive that they fooled fans of Ripple into thinking that its blockchain could benefit from these financial flows.
Even XRPL co-creator David Schwartz praised the news.
Instead, the DTCC subsidiary National Securities Clearing Corporation’s (NSCC) listing of Ripple Prime in its Market Participant Identifier (MPID) directory simply means that a very mundane authorization has been granted that doesn’t involve the XRPL settling DTCC transactions.
The DTCC notice assigns Hidden Road the executing broker MPID “HRFI” under clearing broker “PERS” with numeric code “0443.” That code belongs to Pershing LLC, the BNY Mellon subsidiary that handles custody, settlement, and clearing for hundreds of smaller broker-dealers.
By order of operations, Ripple Prime/Hidden Road executes OTC trades, then Pershing clears and settles them through NSCC. XRPL plays no role in those clearing or settlement transactions.
Moreover, the execution approval covers OTC products eligible for NSCC which are, as its name suggests, National Securities Clearing transactions. The DTCC notice shows OTC approval only for Ripple Prime and shows no checkmarks for standard corporates, municipals, or unit investment trusts.
Dozens of firms go through this exact onboarding process every month. On the same notice, NSCC added directory updates for Paralel Distributors, US Bancorp Fund Services, and several others alongside Ripple Prime.
What Ripple actually said versus what fans heard
When Ripple announced its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road in April 2025, the press release stated, “Hidden Road will, in turn, migrate its post-trade activity across XRPL to streamline operations and lower costs.”
The future tense of the verb “will” indicated aspiration, not a current operation.
That deal closed in October 2025, and although Hidden Road has rebranded to Ripple Prime and gained an enviable directory listing with NSCC, it’s not yet settling any DTCC trades on XRPL.
Moreover, it doesn’t have that authorization.
Ten months later, Hidden Road’s own website still describes the company as a “global credit network for institutions” offering prime brokerage, clearing, and financing across traditional and digital assets.
Aside from a single mention on its Ripple acquisition press release, its website otherwise makes zero mention of XRPL on its website.
Read more: Years of hype but still no deal: SWIFT sidesteps XRP again
Wild exaggerations about the role of XRPL with the DTCC
An XRP influencer with more than 270,000 followers posted that “Ripple Prime’s role in bridging TradFi and DeFi will likely move post-trade volume to the XRPL,” earning 580,000 impressions.
Crypto outlets including CoinGape, CryptoNinjas, and others ran headlines declaring Ripple Prime would “move post-trade activity to XRPL via NSCC link.”
Hidden Road will process “quadrillions” through DTCC, wrote several mistaken XRP fans.
Unfortunately, a directory listing is not an on-chain milestone.
In summary, a soon-to-be Ripple subsidiary has FINRA broker-dealer approval and now shows up in the NSCC MPID directory to execute OTC trades with Pershing as its clearing broker.
Although Ripple Prime has the regulatory scaffolding to operate as an executing broker in US securities markets, that doesn’t mean that any transactions from DTCC will necessarily create demand for ledger space on the XRPL.
The timeline from Ripple for actually routing Ripple Prime’s post-trade flows onto permanent ledgers in the XRPL blockchain remains conveniently unspecified.
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Source: https://protos.com/no-dtcc-isnt-settling-4-quadrillion-on-xrpl/
