Making sense of Ripple’s $1.25B Hidden Road acquisition and RLUSD expansion to Aave, Kraken
Ripple Monthly Overview - May 2, 2025
Welcome to the Ripple Overview. Before we dive in, here’s a quick breakdown:
Every month, we’re diving into Ripple, XRP, XRPL, RLUSD and more. We’re sharing the latest ecosystem developments to help readers get up to speed on its biggest updates, metrics, insights and more.
Ripple by the numbers
$XRP: $2.23 (+2.59%)
XRPL TVL: $80.63M
XRP Holders: 442.14K (+1.11%)
RLUSD Volume (24H): 49.25M (-7.75%)
XRP Payment Volume: 767.2K(+2.59%)
These metrics are accurate upon publication. The percentages are based on month-over-month change, unless noted otherwise.
Ripple Rundown
➡️What happened: Last month, Ripple acquired Hidden Road, a global multi-asset prime broker, for $1.25 billion and expanded its RLUSD stablecoin utility through integration with Ripple Payments, Aave V3 and Kraken.
➡️Why does it matter: Hidden Road clears $3 trillion annually and serves over 300 institutional clients. Hidden Road is a prime brokerage that helps institutional investors, typically hedge funds, with a range of products. This can include clearing and financing with access to products like foreign exchange (FX), digital assets, derivatives and fixed income.
By acquiring it, Ripple can gain access to traditional financial institutions that have been cautious about entering crypto. For context, clearing entails matching and finalizing financial transactions.
Ripple also plans to inject billions of dollars of capital to help expand the firm's capacity and potentially become one of the largest non-bank prime brokers globally. This can allow them to offer new products as well as service more markets and asset classes.
An interesting part of this partnership is how RLUSD stablecoin will be used across both DeFi and traditional finance (TradFi). Hidden Road will integrate RLUSD as collateral for its prime brokerage products, allowing institutions to use the same pool of funds for both traditional and crypto investments.
This solves a real problem for institutions that currently have to maintain separate collateral pools. The ability to use a single stablecoin for cross-margining between traditional and digital assets could reduce capital requirements for institutions. This can potentially help the adoption of crypto beyond spot ETFs.
➡️The big picture: In the past month, RLUSD has also increased its utility with multiple integrations. The stablecoin is connected to Ripple Payments, designed for fast cross-border payments. This can help with many use cases such as remittance to collateralization for trading tokenized RWAs such as commodities, securities and treasuries.
Additionally, Aave V3 integrated RLUSD for both supply and borrowing functions. Aave is home to a huge pool of liquidity with $20.67 billion in TVL and is the largest protocol on Ethereum by TVL. This deployment gives users access to Aave's lending protocol, allowing them to earn yield on RLUSD deposits or use it as collateral for borrowing other assets across networks.
Separately, Kraken Exchange added support for RLUSD to provide additional on and off-ramps for trading, ultimately increasing the stablecoin's accessibility in different markets.
These developments coincide with an increasing supply of RLUSD's, as its market cap has grown to $317 million, up 164% month-over-month. The collective growth in integrations, acquisitions and minting can indicate that RLUSD has found product market fit across diverse financial use cases. These indicators can be a sign of increased market acceptance and momentum for the institution and compliance focused stablecoin.
Interested in learning more on Ripple? Here’s some updates that caught our eye:
Read Ripple's tokenization report with BCG on how the RWA markets could reach $18 trillion by 2033
Check out Ripple’s report with ADAN, Ipsos and Deloitte on web3 and crypto in France and Europe, regarding regulations for banks and crypto asset service providers
Learn about Ripple's drought relief pilot using RLUSD stablecoin to support Kenyan pastoral communities via smart contracts
Explore the opportunities and key takeaways from Ripple’s UK Policy Summit in this blog
Follow Ripple and visit their website to explore additional opportunities.
XRP Ledger developments
Look into the biggest announcements, developments and more happening within the Ripple
Learn about XRPL’s DeFi use cases including it’s hybrid DEX system for RWA tokenization and RLUSD integration with Ethereum
Read about RLUSDs release of Ripple Payments for fast cross-border payments and institutional compliance
Explore Ripple Community Relations Manager Dan Fisher's April highlights for the XRP Ledger in this X article
Check out the Aave RLUSD dashboard for supply, lending and borrowing details
Enter the XRPL community
Want to build on the XRP Ledger? Visit the XRPL learning portal for more info on documentation and tools. Or go further down the rabbit hole:
Register for APEX 2025 in Singapore on June 10-12 to connect with the XRPL developer community
Attend Ripple's digital asset security webinar to explore their custody service offerings on May 13 at 9AM BST
Apply for the XRPL Apex Admission Scholarship covering your ticket to join 3 days of hands-on learning in Singapore
Join the XRPL Discord to connect with developers in the community
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.