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Ripple just got a lot bigger in institutional finance. The company said on October 6 that it’s extending its partnership with Brevan Howard — a fund manager running roughly $35 billion — to cover multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing, and financing services through Ripple Prime, spanning both traditional and digital markets.
Why It Matters
This expansion into multi-asset prime brokerage with Brevan Howard signals a significant endorsement of Ripple's services in the institutional finance space, reinforcing the growing acceptance of digital assets among traditional financial players. As institutional adoption continues to rise, partnerships like this could enhance liquidity and accessibility for digital assets, potentially influencing broader market dynamics and regulatory perceptions surrounding cryptocurrencies.
It’s not a brand-new relationship. Brevan Howard affiliates already put money into Ripple’s $500 million funding round back in 2025, when the company was valued at $40 billion. That round also pulled in Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities, and others. So the expansion to full prime brokerage services is pretty much a deepening of a bet Brevan Howard already made. The new agreement lets Brevan Howard’s investment teams run trading operations and manage capital across asset classes through a single platform — which is basically the whole pitch behind Ripple Prime.
Alan McGroarty, Group Chief Operating Officer, said the growing link between digital and traditional markets is making institutional-quality digital asset infrastructure more important. He didn’t spell out exactly how Brevan Howard plans to use the platform, but the direction is clear.
The Platform Behind the Deal
Ripple Prime isn’t new, but it’s been moving fast. The Delta One offering launched on August 27, giving hedge funds and asset managers access to total return swaps tied to U.S.-listed equities, indexes, and digital assets — without requiring direct ownership of those assets. Clients can keep a single counterparty relationship and cross-margin positions across different asset classes, which matters a lot when you’re running money across both crypto and traditional markets simultaneously.
The Delta One business sits inside a clearing and financing operation that holds over $1 billion in regulatory net capital. Ripple says it doesn’t do proprietary trading or market-making, which is a deliberate positioning choice — it wants to be the infrastructure, not a competing trader.
A big chunk of that infrastructure came from the acquisition of Hidden Road in October 2025, a deal that cost $1.25 billion. Hidden Road had already picked up a FINRA broker-dealer license in April 2025, before Ripple bought it, which opened the door to over-the-counter, cash-settled crypto swaps for U.S. institutional investors. That license was probably a key reason Ripple paid what it paid.
Debt, Capital, and a $50 Billion Valuation
Ripple’s balance sheet has been active. On August 18, the company closed a $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes to support U.S. business expansion. KBRA gave the notes a BBB investment-grade rating. Piper Sandler ran the placement. That’s real institutional debt paper — not the kind of financing you see from a company still figuring out what it is.
Separate from that, in May, Ripple locked in a $200 million facility from funds managed by Neuberger Berman. The company was careful to draw a line between that facility — meant to build out client-lending capacity — and the senior unsecured notes issued later. Different instruments, different purposes. Worth keeping track of both.
And then there’s the valuation story. Ripple raised that $500 million round at $40 billion. It also ran a $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation, buying back more than a quarter of its outstanding shares to give liquidity to employees and early investors. But by July 2026, after a $750 million share buyback, the valuation had climbed toward $50 billion. That’s a significant jump in a short window.
XRP Ledger and RLUSD in the Mix
There’s a crypto-native layer to all of this that’s easy to miss in the institutional finance framing. Ripple Prime accepts RLUSD — Ripple’s stablecoin — as collateral. And the company plans to move some post-trade activities onto the XRP Ledger. That’s not just a product feature. It’s a signal about where Ripple sees the infrastructure going — and it ties the prime brokerage build-out directly back to the blockchain side of the business.
For institutional clients like Brevan Howard, that probably matters less in the short term than execution quality, counterparty reliability, and capital efficiency. But it’s there, and it’s not accidental.
Ripple Prime’s expansion into equity derivatives, its accumulation of regulatory capital, the Hidden Road acquisition, the debt issuance, and now the Brevan Howard expansion — all of it points to a company trying to become a serious piece of the institutional financial plumbing, not just a crypto firm with a prime brokerage attached to it. Whether that pitch lands with more $35 billion funds is unclear yet. But Ripple’s got the balance sheet to keep pushing. Regulatory net capital above $1 billion, a BBB-rated debt instrument, and a FINRA-licensed broker-dealer sitting inside the structure.
The Brevan Howard deal went live October 6.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What services is Ripple providing to Brevan Howard through Ripple Prime?
Ripple is offering Brevan Howard multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing, and financing services across both traditional and digital markets through its Ripple Prime platform.
How much did Ripple pay to acquire Hidden Road, and why does it matter?
Ripple acquired Hidden Road in October 2025 for $1.25 billion; the firm held a FINRA broker-dealer license that enabled over-the-counter, cash-settled crypto swaps for U.S. institutional investors, directly strengthening Ripple Prime’s capabilities.
