XRP News Today: Ripple Acquires Hidden Road for $1.25 Billion, Expanding XRP and RLUSD Footprint

Ripple has been actively acquiring key transaction infrastructure to route transactions through its cryptocurrency XRP and its stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD). This strategy has drawn comparisons to the aggressive investment and acquisition tactics of Japanese investment firm SoftBank. The recent $1.25-billion acquisition of Hidden Road on April 8 allows Ripple to use RLUSD as collateral in the firm’s prime brokerage products. Additionally, Hidden Road will migrate its post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger, the blockchain that supports XRP and several of Ripple’s institutional services.

Austin King, the founder and CEO of Omni Network, has firsthand experience with Ripple’s strategy. He sold his startup, Strata Labs, to Ripple in 2019 and describes Ripple’s approach as a “SoftBank-type” acquisition strategy. Unlike companies such as Google or Meta, which focus on in-house development, SoftBank built its empire through aggressive investments, joint ventures, and acquisitions. Ripple appears to be following a similar playbook, although not everyone is convinced that the comparison holds.

SoftBank’s success is marked by two significant deals: an early investment in Yahoo and a $20-million bet on Alibaba, which skyrocketed to $60 billion when Alibaba went public in 2014. SoftBank recycled its returns into fresh capital, exits, and a sprawling ecosystem, including a $20-billion move into US telecom via Sprint and a $31-billion acquisition of UK-based ARM. This wide breadth of coverage allowed SoftBank to create synergies across its entire portfolio of companies. Ripple is performing a similar strategy focused on financial services, but instead of venture bets on Yahoo and Alibaba enabling this, it is XRP.

Ripple’s recent acquisitions, like SoftBank, involve buying infrastructure instead of building it from scratch and treating their portfolios as ecosystems rather than one-off investments. Both companies rely on capital as leverage. SoftBank used its $100-billion Vision Fund to outbid competitors. Ripple also has a war chest of XRP and cash. As of March 31, Ripple had 4.56 billion XRP (around $11 billion at current prices) and another 37.13 billion XRP ($89.8 billion) in escrow. Acquisitions expand the footprint for XRP and RLUSD in traditional finance, turning them into embedded components of custody, brokerage, and payment flows. This creates what King describes as a token-fueled flywheel. Ripple uses its assets to acquire infrastructure, which in turn drives usage back into those assets.

Sid Powell, co-founder and CEO of institutional blockchain lender Maple, notes that with a full-stack infrastructure, Ripple can embed XRP as the native bridge asset between networks, custodians, and tokenized assets. Meanwhile, RLUSD can provide a regulated, USD-pegged unit of account that institutions want. However, King’s analogy has its skeptics. Casper Johansen, co-founder of Spartan Group, notes that SoftBank’s success came from acquiring and turning around operating businesses, joint ventures, minority stakes, and eventually exiting some for large gains. Ripple, on the other hand, is taking a more focused and product-related approach with its recent acquisitions tied to payment missions and core blockchain.

Ripple is assembling a financial infrastructure stack, acquiring custody firms Metaco in 2023 and Standard Custody in 2024. The latest addition, prime broker Hidden Road, brings 300 institutional clients clearing $3 trillion annually. This move echoes a broader M&A wave among US crypto firms. Kraken recently acquired NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, while Coinbase has acquired Deribit for $2.9 billion. These acquisitions follow a shift in the US regulatory climate that’s clearing the runway for crypto firms to scale. For years, companies like Ripple were stuck in limbo, facing lawsuits, enforcement actions, and denied access to basic banking services under the Securities and Exchange Commission. While “debanking” remains a concern, industry leaders say momentum is changing. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a recent media interview that the SEC is expected to take a “very constructive and positive” stance toward the industry.

Ripple itself spent years in a legal battle with the SEC, which sued the company in December 2020. On May 8, Ripple and the SEC reached a settlement to formally end the case, pending court approval. Garlinghouse said Ripple intends to continue exploring acquisitions. King predicts that in the next year or two, Ripple might acquire a large-scale point-of-sale company to expand its territory from backend financial services to more direct consumer payments. Ripple’s recent moves show it’s willing to pursue high-stakes acquisitions, including plays to absorb stablecoin rivals. However, the practical integration of XRP remains limited since institutions still hesitate to use volatile crypto assets for core settlement. RLUSD is more promising, but it still faces major competition from incumbents like USDC and PayPal USD. Stablecoin regulation in the US remains unresolved, with the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins of 2025 Act failing to pass cloture in the Senate on May 8.