Less than a year after acquiring Hidden Road, Ripple says its rebranded prime brokerage business is becoming a cornerstone of its push to connect traditional finance with digital assets through 24/7 institutional trading.

Speaking to Markets Media on July 17, Michael Higgins, international CEO of Ripple Prime, said the firm is building infrastructure for what he called "Wall Street 2.0," where collateral, liquidity and settlement increasingly move from traditional banking rails onto blockchain networks.

Once the $1.25 billion acquisition of non-bank prime broker Hidden Road closed in October 2025, Ripple Prime saw its revenue triple year over year.

Ripple, known for the RLUSD stablecoin and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) Ledger infrastructure, also secured a $200 million debt facility from Neuberger Specialty Finance. The capital will be used to increase financing available to clients trading across both traditional and digital markets, allowing Ripple Prime to expand its lending capacity and serve a broader range of institutional counterparties.

RLUSD Expands Into Institutional Collateral

Ripple Prime is increasingly integrating RLUSD, across its prime brokerage offerings.

Certain derivatives clients have already elected to hold balances in RLUSD, with adoption expected to expand as exchanges and institutional platforms move toward continuous trading.

"If the next step is GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoins, RLUSD is likely to be in the mix," Higgins predicts.

‘The Current Crypto Winter Is Not A Digital Asset Winter‘

Higgins highlighted that institutional adoption is becoming more sophisticated despite weakness in cryptocurrency prices.

Asset managers are increasingly tokenizing money-market funds, placing them on-chain and using them in transactions involving stablecoins and repurchase agreements.

"The world is inexorably moving in this direction," Higgins said. "The current crypto winter is not a digital asset winter."

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