Ripple Acquires Hidden Road for $1.25 Billion
In a recent update, CNF discussed the decision of Ripple to acquire the prime brokerage firm Hidden Road. According to that report, the deal involved an amount of $1.25 billion, becoming one of the biggest acquisitions in crypto history. Today, Ripple Managing Director for the UK and Europe, Cassie Craddock, has disclosed that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) would play a crucial role in this operation by acting as a post-trade for “all Hidden Road’s prime brokerage services”.
Pointing out what to expect from this acquisition, Craddock disclosed that Hidden Road would come along with 300 institutional clients. Fascinatingly, this would not be an issue as the company is well aligned and positioned to meet the various demands of these clients, which basically include enterprise-grade digital asset solutions.
These customers will be able to take advantage of our solutions. We’re focused on solving real problems for banking and institutional clients while continuing to build use cases and utility for digital assets.
More Details About Craddock’s Submission and Ripple’s License Update
After her submission, a section of the XRP community positively reacted to this development, while others appeared confused about what she meant by XRPL for post-trades. Clarifying this confusion, a crypto influencer identified as Crypto Eri explained that this has to do with how XRPL could handle actual transactions. According to Crypto Eri, a typical example of this could be the settlement of trades and movement of Ripple stablecoin RLUSD collateral, as well as data-related processes.
These details come days after Ripple obtained approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to operate as a US broker-dealer. Other reports also explain that the license was given to its subsidiary partner, Hidden Road Partners CIV US LLC. This implies that the firm could expand its fixed-income prime brokerage platform. According to the president of the firm, Noel Kimmel, this could be a huge step towards enhancing its capabilities in the traditional finance market.
This is a significant step in the development of Hidden Road’s fixed income prime brokerage platform and bolsters our capabilities in traditional financial markets. Hidden Road was founded in 2018. Over the years, it has significantly improved to clear over $3 trillion annually across markets. Commenting on the acquisition, Ripple boss Brad Garlinghouse highlighted that this is a “big deal for Ripple and the industry at large”. According to him, bridging the gap between traditional finance and the crypto market demands the support of a top-tier infrastructure.
Technically, XRP is expected to benefit greatly from this acquisition. As highlighted in our last analysis, XRP has been tipped to hit $15 once some outlined key events come up with positive outcomes. Analysts also believe that a related Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) could be approved soon, positioning the price for an upsurge, as discussed earlier. At press time, XRP was trading at $2.1 after surging by 3% in the last 24 hours.