Ripple announced its acquisition of Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, marking one of the largest deals in the digital assets space and positioning Ripple as the first cryptocurrency company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime brokerage.

Hidden Road, founded in 2018, clears over $3 trillion annually across markets, serving more than 300 institutional clients with services like clearing, financing, and trading across foreign exchange, digital assets, derivatives, swaps, and fixed income.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse emphasized the deal’s timing, noting that the U.S. market is “effectively open for the first time” due to the end of regulatory uncertainty from the previous SEC regime. This acquisition follows Ripple’s settlement of a long-standing SEC lawsuit in 2024, which had accused the company of illegal securities offerings tied to XRP sales—a case that concluded with a $125 million penalty, far below regulators’ initial demands.

The deal enhances Ripple’s ecosystem, particularly its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin, launched in December 2024 to compete with Tether and USD Coin. Hidden Road will leverage RLUSD as collateral across its prime brokerage products, making it the first stablecoin to enable efficient cross-margining between digital and traditional markets.

Additionally, Hidden Road plans to migrate its post-trade activity to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), showcasing XRPL’s potential as a blockchain for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi). Ripple will inject billions from its balance sheet—bolstered by over $1 billion in cash and $25 billion in digital assets, mostly XRP—to scale Hidden Road’s operations, aiming to make it the largest non-bank prime broker globally.

Ripple’s prior investments, like its 1% stake in Hidden Road from a Series B round, and its $250 million purchase of Metaco in 2023, underscore its aggressive expansion strategy in a maturing market.