In one of the largest deals in the crypto space to date, crypto payments company Ripple is acquiring prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25 billion in an effort to expand its services for institutional investors. The acquisition represents an effort by Ripple, the company behind XRP, to integrate a broader range of services that will attract large institutions, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Fortune. “Ripple needs to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to appeal and expand to a larger segment of the biggest bulge bracket institutions,” he said.
The deal consisted of mostly cash as well as XRP and stock, Garlinghouse said. The acquisition will close in the coming months pending regulatory approval, and Hidden Road founder Marc Asch will stay on to head the prime broker at Ripple. FT Partners provided financial advice to Hidden Road.
Primer brokers are integral to the efficiency of financial markets, including emerging crypto ones, as they provide a range of services—including trading, custody, lending and borrowing—to large institutions like hedge funds, banks and private equity firms. Because of this, they require a substantial amount of capital to function. As part of the deal, Ripple will “inject billions of dollars of capital to provide immediate scale and satisfy the demand for Hidden Road’s prime brokerage,” the company said in a statement.
The deal will benefit Ripple by requiring Hidden Road to integrate some of the company’s products in an attempt to further adoption. The prime broker will integrate the use of RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin, as collateral across its prime brokerage products and explore using the XRP Ledger, the blockchain that underlies XRP, to “improve the efficiency of settlement,” Garlinghouse said.
The acquisition comes as the regulatory environment in the U.S. shifts in favor of the crypto industry, giving the greenlight to financial institutions that were previously hesitant to engage with the asset class. Since President Trump publicly endorsed the adoption of Bitcoin by the U.S. government, institutions like Fidelity, Bank of New York Mellon and even Gamestop have begun to embrace crypto, making prime brokers like Hidden Road increasingly important.
Hidden Road was founded in 2018 by Asch, who comes from a background in hedge funds, including stints working for billionaire Steven Cohen’s firms SAC Capital and Point72 Asset Management. The company focuses on cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange, competing with other crypto prime brokers like FalconX and Coinbase Prime. In 2024, Hidden Road facilitated the transfer of $3 trillion worth of funds.
Hidden Road raised $50 million in a Series A in 2022 that included participation from Castle Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Citadel Securities. The company had been weighing a potential sale or capital raise since mid-March, Bloomberg reported last month citing “people with knowledge of the matter.”
