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Ripple announced its $1.25 billion Hidden Road acquisition in April 2025 and closed the deal in October, rebranding the prime broker as Ripple Prime. One year on, the business has tripled in size, with client collateral doubling and average daily transactions climbing past 60 million.
The relationship between Ripple Prime’s success and XRP’s price has been weak, with XRP declining by 27% in Q1. External forces like the U.S. government’s 43-day shutdown in Q4 2025 and geopolitical tensions are currently influencing XRP’s price momentum more than Ripple’s internal growth.
XRP would only benefit from Ripple’s internal developments if its external drivers turn positive. That is: if the CLARITY Act passes and the U.S. and Iran reach a peace deal. With both, XRP could rally back toward its $3.65 cycle high.
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On April 8, 2025, Ripple (CRYPTO: XRP) announced a $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road at Paris Blockchain Week. The acquisition makes Ripple the first crypto firm to operate a global, multi-asset prime brokerage, giving it a financing infrastructure that traditional finance has relied on for decades. Ripple says the move positions RLUSD and the XRP Ledger for global institutional adoption.
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One year on, Ripple has rebranded Hidden Road as Ripple Prime, and the business has grown in size. But XRP hasn't reflected this progress, with the coin dropping from above $2 over 12 months ago to trade at $1.38. We looked at Ripple Prime's performance over this period, and more importantly, what those developments could mean for XRP in 2026.
After the acquisition, Ripple moved from a payment system to an institutional market system, and over the past year, the company has been delivering on its roadmap promises.
Ripple began keeping its promises by rebranding Hidden Road as Ripple Prime. Hidden Road was already clearing $3 trillion annually across 300 institutional clients when Ripple announced the acquisition. Since the deal closed in October 2025, Ripple's own statements show the business has tripled in size, with client collateral doubling and average daily transactions climbing past 60 million.
Building on that scale, Ripple raised $500 million in November 2025 at a $40 billion valuation, with Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities leading the round. Ripple has separately injected roughly $500 million of capital into Ripple Prime since the acquisition, with another $500 million expected in 2026 according to Kroll's rating report. Ripple Prime became profitable in 2025 as it processed higher volumes and added more institutional clients.
In April 2026, Ripple Prime got a BBB investment-grade rating from Kroll. This rating opens the door for pension funds, banks, and insurance companies to work with the platform—something no other crypto-affiliated prime broker currently has.
Ripple Prime's momentum has improved investor confidence in RLUSD, Ripple's stablecoin. Last year, Ripple promised RLUSD would be the first stablecoin to connect margining systems between traditional finance and digital asset markets. That is already happening, with RLUSD approved as margin collateral on OKX across over 280 trading pairs.
Ripple Prime's institutional traders can now also trade BTC options on Bullish using RLUSD as collateral. These all reflect that 12 months after promising institutional-scale infrastructure, Ripple Prime has moved from announcement to execution, with its institutional system now actively in use.
In previous cycles, Ripple's internal developments acted as a major catalyst for XRP's price. That relationship still exists, but it is weaker now as partnerships or deals barely move the XRP price. These following factors have affected XRP's momentum.
Ripple Prime has improved performance on RLUSD and the XRP Ledger, but XRPL burns just 0.00001 XRP per transaction—a fee designed to prevent spam, not to materially reduce supply or boost XRP's price.
XRP Ledger metrics show that since 2013, total XRPL token burns across the network have been about 14.3 million XRP. With XRP's total supply at 100 billion, the burns have removed roughly 0.014% of supply over more than a decade. And that is not enough to meaningfully influence the coin’s growth.
Since Q4 2025, external factors have driven XRP's price performance more than any development inside Ripple's ecosystem. The 43-day U.S. government shutdown from October 1 to November 12 delayed bills and pushed the Senate timeline for passing the CLARITY Act into 2026—a major driver of XRP's selloff during the shutdown, when the token fell from around $2.95 to test $2.20 late last year.
At the same time, the Middle East conflicts between the U.S. and Iran affected XRP's momentum, with investors choosing oil and gold over high-risk crypto assets. XRP briefly traded above $1.50 in early April on expectations that both countries would reach a peace agreement, which is a bigger move than anything Ripple Prime's milestones have triggered in 2026.
Despite Ripple Prime's strong performance in 2026, XRP lost 27% of its value in Q1 and remains under bearish pressure in Q2, reflecting how weak the relationship between Ripple's infrastructure development and XRP's price really is.
Right now, Ripple Prime has delivered on its promises, but it lacks the force to drive XRP's price like other external factors. For XRP to reflect Ripple Prime's growth, it needs favorable external conditions going for it. The key catalysts to watch are the U.S.-Iran peace talks and the CLARITY Act passage.
The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ships. There have been two attempts to reach peace agreements, and both have failed, with the ceasefire between the two countries now fragile. If the U.S. and Iran reach a peace deal, it would trigger a market rally and push the XRP price higher.
Moreso, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis is pushing the Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott to schedule the CLARITY Act markup, and Senator Lummis says she expects the markup to happen in the second week of May. If the bill passes, XRP would get much-needed regulatory clarity, similar to the SEC settlement in 2025, and the resolution preceded XRP's rally to its $3.65 cycle high last year.
Until these events happen, Ripple Prime will continue to deliver on its promise, but it may not directly impact the XRP price.
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