Ripple-owned Hidden Road has acquired a license from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), allowing it to operate as a broker-dealer.
Noel Kimmel, President of Hidden Road, revealed the milestone yesterday during an interview with Bloomberg.
Significance of the License
Kimmel noted that the FINRA license would allow Hidden Road to grow its user base and transact with more institutional customers. In his view, the license marks the next step in developing its prime brokerage products.
Moreover, he emphasized that with the regulatory approval, Hidden Road can offer prime brokerage services, transparent transactions, and other financing services directly to new and existing institutional clients across fixed-income assets.
Further, Hidden Road’s President disclosed that the company aspires to become a full-service non-bank prime broker for traditional and digital assets.
Ripple Taking Over Hidden Road
For context, Hidden Road secured its FINRA license a week after San Francisco-based payments company Ripple acquired it. As previously reported, the acquisition cost Ripple $1.25 billion, marking its largest acquisition to date.
Following the acquisition, Hidden Road plans to move its post-trade activity to the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Since XRP is the underlying token of XRP, Hidden Road could utilize it to facilitate those transactions.
As part of the deal, the prime broker will also use Ripple USD (RLUSD) as a collateral asset for its brokerage services. In a recent statement, Kimmel suggested that before the acquisition, it was constrained from pursuing greater opportunities due to the limited capital it had on its own.
Therefore, he told Bloomberg that Hidden Road hopes to leverage Ripple’s balance sheet to expand its capital base, allowing it to execute larger transactions.
Financial Institutions to Engage with XRP Via Hidden Road
In the meantime, several financial experts have commented on Hidden Road’s recently approved broker-dealer license, highlighting its significance.
The Digital Ascension Group Managing Director, Jake Claver, called the license a ‘huge deal.’ According to him, the license enables financial institutions like market-makers and hedge funds to transact in digital assets, including XRP, through a fully authorized U.S. intermediary.
This suggests that these financial institutions can execute these transactions through Hidden Road without developing their own in-house infrastructure.
“This implies they now have access to financing, clearing, and custody services in a one-stop shop,” Claver remarked.
This broker-dealer license is a huge deal since it opens the door for institutions like hedge funds and market makers to engage with digital assets ( including #XRP ) through a fully licensed US partner. That means they now have access to financing, custody, and clearing services… https://t.co/2HWIkQ8HEX
— Jake Claver, QFOP (@beyond_broke) April 17, 2025