Ripple Launches Ripple Prime After $1.25B Hidden Road Deal

Ripple has launched Ripple Prime, a new feature it will add to its payment services, following the completion of $1.25 billion Hidden Road deal earlier this year.

In a blog post, Ripple revealed that Hidden Road has been rebranded as Ripple Prime, a prime brokerage that will use blockchain technology to make operations more efficient and less costly.

Ripple first announced plans to buy Hidden Road in April, stating that the deal was subject to regulatory approval. Now that the deal is completed, Ripple celebrates entering an “exciting new chapter” as it becomes the first crypto company to own a global, multi-asset prime broker.

The firm further stated that the deal will help bring digital assets to large financial clients and that its system for payments, crypto storage, stablecoins, and XRP will support the services offered through Ripple Prime.

Ripple Expands RLUSD Utility with Ripple Prime

Ripple stated that Ripple Prime will boost the usefulness and adoption of its RLUSD stablecoin, noting that Ripple already uses RLUSD as collateral for certain financial products, and traders already store their funds in it.

According to Ripple, the RLUSD stablecoin follows strong regulatory rules, making it trusted by large financial institutions. The rating firm Bluechip ranked RLUSD as the number one stablecoin, giving it an “A” rating for its stability and asset support.

Earlier this year, Ripple partnered with BNY Mellon, the primary reserve custodian for the RLUSD stablecoin, demonstrating Ripple’s commitment to meeting the highest standards for institutions and regulators.

Ripple Prime Positions Ripple for the Institutional Crypto Era

Ripple Prime launches as Wall Street becomes more open to crypto. Experts see it as Ripple’s answer to rivals like BlackRock, offering full services from asset storage to transaction processing.

A Hidden Road statement from April marked the acquisition as one of the largest deals in the digital assets space, emphasizing Ripple’s goal to make digital assets more accessible to institutions on a large scale.

As Ripple plans to expand, Ripple Prime is more than a rebrand; it is a blueprint for the institutional crypto era, with $3 trillion in potential transactions flowing through XRP, and the ledger’s burn mechanism potentially increasing scarcity and value.