According to breaking news, Ripple announced today that it acquired crypto-friendly brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion.
The deal will be settled primarily in cash, XRP tokens, and company stock. The acquisition is expected to close in the coming months, pending regulatory approval.
This acquisition represents one of the largest deals in the digital assets space.
With this acquisition, Ripple becomes the first cryptocurrency company to own and operate a global, multi-asset primary brokerage firm.
Hidden Road is one of the world’s fastest growing primary brokerages, providing institutions with a one-stop shop for advanced services including clearing, prime brokerage and financing across foreign exchange (FX), digital assets, derivatives, swaps and fixed income.
Hidden Road has a strong business clearing $3 trillion annually in markets with over 300 institutional clients.
With this acquisition, Hidden Road will move its post-trade activities across XRPL to streamline operations and reduce costs, demonstrating XRPL’s potential to become the blockchain of choice for enterprise decentralized finance (DeFi).
Hidden Road will also use Ripple USD (RLUSD) as collateral among its primary brokerage products.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a statement:
“We are at an inflection point for the next phase of digital asset adoption. The U.S. market is effectively open for the first time due to increased regulatory burden with the demise of the old SEC, and the market is maturing to meet the needs of traditional finance.
“With these positive tailwinds, we continue to pursue opportunities to transform the space at scale, leveraging our positioning and XRP’s strengths to accelerate our business and enhance our existing solutions and technology.”
*This is not investment advice.
