

Blockchain technology company Ripple Labs Inc. announced today that it has acquired multi-asset prime brokerage firm Hidden Road Inc. for $1.25 billion.
Founded in 2018, Hidden Road is a prime brokerage firm specializing in over-the-counter services for digital assets. The company offers a range of services, including clearing, prime brokerage and financing across various asset classes, such as foreign exchange, equities, commodities, digital assets, energy and rates.
Hidden Road also operates a global credit network for institutions that gives access to both traditional and digital markets. The company says it offers a conflict-free approach that ensures no competition with clients, avoiding conflicts of interest with counterparties, custodians or trading venues.
Other services provided by the company include a Fixed Income prime brokerage platform that was launched in March. The service includes Fixed Income Repo and Global Funding, following the firm’s approval as a Fixed Income Clearing Corporation clearing member.
Hidden Road is currently clearing $3 trillion annually across markets with more than 300 top institutional customers. Post acquisition, Ripple plans to use its balance sheet to exponentially expand its capacity to service its pipeline and become the largest nonbank prime broker globally.
The combined companies will also deliver digital assets to institutional customers at scale, bridging traditional finance and decentralized finance.
“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 the regulatory overhang of the former SEC coming to an end and the market is maturing to address the needs of traditional finance,” Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse said in a statement. “With these tailwinds, we are continuing to pursue opportunities to massively transform the space, leveraging our unique position and strengths of XRP to accelerate our business and enhance our current solutions and technology.”
The acquisition will see Hidden Road leverage Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin as collateral across its prime brokerage products. Doing so will make RLUSD the first stablecoin to enable cross-margining between the digital asset space and traditional markets.
Hidden Road will also migrate its post-trade activity across XRP Ledger, a decentralized, public blockchain designed to facilitate fast and energy-efficient transactions, streamline operations and lower costs.
Coming into its acquisition, Hidden Road had raised $50 million in funding over two rounds, according to Tracxn. Investors in the company include Castle Island Ventures LP, Uncorrelated Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Selini Capital, Humla Ventures, Wintermute Trading Ltd., Profluent Trading, Coinbase Inc., Corner Capital Partners, Citadel Securities and FTX Trading Ltd.
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