Ripple Acquires Hidden Road for $1.25 Billion to Boost Institutional Crypto Adoption

Ripple has announced its largest acquisition to date, agreeing to purchase Hidden Road for $1.25 billion. This deal marks one of the most significant mergers and acquisitions in the digital assets sector, underscoring Ripple's strategic focus on enhancing its infrastructure to support institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Hidden Road, established in 2018, specializes in clearing, financing, and prime brokerage services across a variety of asset classes, including foreign exchange, digital assets, derivatives, swaps, and fixed income. The firm currently handles over $3 trillion in annual clearing for more than 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds. This acquisition surpasses Stripe’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge earlier this year, highlighting Ripple's commitment to expanding its capabilities in the institutional crypto space.

The acquisition is set to bolster Ripple USD’s (RLUSD) position as an enterprise-grade, USD-backed stablecoin with real-world utility. Hidden Road plans to utilize RLUSD as collateral across its prime brokerage services, making it the first stablecoin to support efficient cross-margining between digital assets and traditional financial markets. This integration aims to streamline workflows and reduce costs, positioning the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as a preferred blockchain for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi).

Ripple also anticipates leveraging this integration to enhance cost efficiency and liquidity in its cross-border payments platform, Ripple Payments, while offering institutional-grade custody solutions to Hidden Road’s clients. The deal is expected to close by the third quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. This move comes shortly after Ripple secured a key legal victory when the US Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a long-running lawsuit that had accused the firm of conducting an unregistered securities offering. The resolution of this lawsuit removes a major overhang for the company and could pave the way for more aggressive expansion.

The broader crypto sector has also been buoyed by the re-election of Donald Trump, who has expressed support for digital assets and pledged more favorable regulatory policies. According to Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, "We are at an inflection point for the next phase of digital asset adoption – the US market is effectively open for the first time due to the regulatory overhang of the former SEC coming to an end, and the market is maturing to address the needs of traditional finance." With these tailwinds, Ripple is continuing to pursue opportunities to massively transform the space, leveraging its position and the strengths of XRP to accelerate its business and enhance its current solutions and technology.