28-4-2025 – Ripple has catapulted itself to the vanguard of financial innovation with a transformative $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, a titan in prime brokerage. This bold move, announced on the heels of resolving its protracted XRP lawsuit, signals Ripple’s unrelenting ambition to bridge the chasm between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi), capitalising on a frenetic wave of crypto dealmaking that has seen $8.2 billion in U.S.-based acquisitions and public listings across 88 transactions in the first four months of 2025 alone—a staggering tripling of last year’s full total.
Ripple’s acquisition of Hidden Road, which handles over $3 trillion in annual transactions for more than 300 institutional clients, is a masterstroke in integrating the XRP Ledger (XRPL) into the heart of institutional finance. The result is nothing short of revolutionary: settlement times have plummeted from a cumbersome 24 hours to a mere 3–5 seconds, redefining efficiency in high-stakes trading. Pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton has lauded the deal as a quintessential example of the TradFi-DeFi convergence, heralding Ripple as a trailblazer in marrying the agility of blockchain with the scale and rigour of conventional markets.
At the core of this integration is Ripple’s newly minted RLUSD stablecoin, now deployed as collateral within Hidden Road’s trading workflows. This innovation enables institutions to harness the transparency and speed of DeFi while upholding the compliance and scope demanded by traditional finance. Deaton underscores the strategic brilliance of this move, noting that it positions Ripple as a linchpin in institutional DeFi, poised to redefine how global markets operate.
Yet Ripple’s vision extends far beyond brokerage. The company is carving out a formidable presence in crypto custody, a sector projected to swell beyond $16 trillion by 2030 as tokenization reshapes asset classes like stocks, bonds, and real estate. Building on its earlier acquisition of Metaco and the subsequent purchase of Standard Custody, Ripple has unveiled Ripple Custody, a robust suite of services tailored for institutional needs. This strategic pivot, Deaton explains, is a calculated bet on the impending tokenization boom, with the XRP Ledger and RLUSD as the backbone of this transformative infrastructure.
Under the stewardship of CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple is seizing the moment to reclaim lost ground after years of legal battles. “It looks like Brad Garlinghouse is making up for lost time,” Deaton observes, pointing to the company’s relentless drive to cement its leadership in blockchain’s next frontier. By weaving together high-speed blockchain networks, stablecoin innovation, institutional trading frameworks, and custody solutions, Ripple is not merely adapting to the evolving financial paradigm—it is shaping it, laying the foundations for a future where tokenised finance could achieve unprecedented scale.
