Ripple’s Bonkers Buyout! 🤑

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Right-ho! Word has reached yours truly that Ripple, a blockchain concern based in San Francisco, has decided to splash out a sum that would make even Jeeves raise an eyebrow. They’re acquiring Hidden Road for a frankly staggering $1.25 billion. One shudders to think what one could do with that kind of folding stuff. 💸

Apparently, this Hidden Road chappie boasts a veritable gaggle of institutional clients, including hedge funds and those frightfully clever quant traders. Ripple, it seems, has been a longtime customer of this prime brokerage fellow. One can only assume they were impressed by the service. Or perhaps they simply had too much money burning a hole in their digital trousers. 🤔

According to the estimable CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, this acquisition will allow the company to give a jolly good boost to its fledgling stablecoin business, Axios reports. Stablecoin, you say? Sounds about as thrilling as a wet weekend in Slough, but what do I know? 🤷‍♂️

With this deal, Ripple also aims to position the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as the go-to blockchain network for institutionally oriented decentralized finance (DeFi). One can only hope they have a better name for it soon. Imagine trying to explain that at the Drones Club! 😵‍💫

“With this deal and the backing of Ripple’s significant balance sheet, Hidden Road will exponentially expand its capacity to service its pipeline and become the largest non-bank prime broker globally,” Garlinghouse declared. One hopes he’s right, of course. Though one suspects the average chap on the street is more concerned with the price of kippers than the intricacies of non-bank prime brokerage. 🐟

And, get this, the price of XRP is up by more than 3% on the news! A veritable bonanza! Or, as Jeeves would say, “A temporary fluctuation in the market, sir.” 🙄

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2025-04-08 15:27