What has Ripple bought, and does it help XRP?

The full answer

On December 4, 2025, Ripple wrote that it “has invested nearly $4 billion into the crypto ecosystem through strategic investments and acquisitions.”[1] That figure mixes two kinds of spending: companies Ripple bought outright, and stakes it took in other firms. The deals are listed below with the prices Ripple disclosed, followed by what is known about XRP’s part in them.

What did Ripple buy, and for how much?

The largest deal was Hidden Road, a prime broker that clears trades and lends to institutions. Ripple announced the $1.25 billion purchase on April 8, 2025.[2] On October 24, 2025 it said: “The acquisition is complete, and Hidden Road is now Ripple Prime.”[3] What that business does and how big it is are covered on what Ripple Prime is.

On October 16, 2025, Ripple announced a “$1 billion acquisition of GTreasury, the global leader in treasury management systems,” and called it “Ripple’s third major acquisition in 2025 alone, following the purchases of prime broker Hidden Road and stablecoin platform Rail.”[4] By December 4, 2025 Ripple described GTreasury as “now-closed.”[1] The software now runs under the Ripple Treasury name,[13] explained on what Ripple Treasury is.

The smaller deals:

• Rail, a stablecoin payments platform: Ripple agreed on August 7, 2025 to buy it for $200 million.[5]
• Palisade, a wallet and custody company: announced November 3, 2025, with no price given.[6]
• Metaco, a Swiss custody and tokenization technology firm: bought for $250 million, announced May 17, 2023.[7]
• Standard Custody: bought in June 2024, with no price given.[3]

The four disclosed prices add to about $2.7 billion (our calculation). The rest of the “nearly $4 billion” is undisclosed prices and investments in other companies. Ripple has kept taking stakes since that figure: on August 3, 2026 it announced “strategic investments” in ZILO and Licuido, which are stakes, not purchases.[8] Why Ripple made those two is on why Ripple invested in ZILO and Licuido.

How were the acquisitions paid for: cash, equity or XRP?

Ripple’s own releases do not say. For Hidden Road, Fortune reported on April 8, 2025: “The deal consisted of mostly cash as well as XRP and stock, Garlinghouse said.”[9] Finance Magnates reported on April 24, 2025 that the deal would be “completed with a mix of cash, XRP tokens and equity.”[10] Neither gives the XRP amount. No public breakdown of payment has been reported for GTreasury, Rail or Palisade. Separately, on November 5, 2025 Ripple announced a $500 million strategic investment at a $40 billion valuation from investors led by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group and affiliates of Citadel Securities, with Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard and Marshall Wace. Ripple said this followed its recent $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation.

The cash has a source that also ties back to XRP. The credit rating agency KBRA wrote on July 8, 2026 that “Ripple maintains a strong capital position (nearly $5.0 billion in cash as of 3Q25),” and that at the parent company “earnings are largely driven by digital asset activity, including XRP sales.”[11] On our reading, XRP funded the deals in two ways: some was reportedly handed over as part of the Hidden Road price, and XRP sales are part of the digital asset activity that KBRA says drives most of Ripple’s earnings. Whether those sales weigh on the market is examined on is Ripple dumping XRP. The crypto.news audit of July 25, 2026 also wrote that the war chest behind the spree was built “in substantial part, on years of programmatic XRP sales,” and that the capital that bought the businesses “originated, to a meaningful degree, in sales of the token to the market.”

Why did Ripple buy Hidden Road and GTreasury?

Ripple gave its reasons at announcement. For Hidden Road, it said the firm would “migrate its post-trade activity across XRPL to streamline operations and lower costs,” and that the deal “will make RLUSD the first stablecoin to enable efficient cross-margining between the digital asset space and traditional markets.”[2] For GTreasury, Ripple called the deal “a significant expansion into the multi-trillion-dollar corporate finance arena.”[1]

Read together, the two deals bought Ripple existing customers on two sides of finance: institutions that borrow and trade through a prime broker, and corporate finance teams that already run their payments through treasury software. That reading is an interpretation of Ripple’s stated reasons. The volume figures attached to both businesses are discussed on what Ripple’s trillion-dollar figures mean.

Have the acquired businesses started using XRP since the deals closed?

Two of them now offer XRP as a product feature, one to trading clients and one to corporate finance teams. Since November 3, 2025, Ripple says, “U.S.-based institutional clients are now able to execute OTC spot transactions across dozens of the most prominent digital assets including XRP and RLUSD” through Ripple Prime.[12] Since April 1, 2026, Ripple Treasury shows “Digital asset balances including XRP and Ripple USD (RLUSD)” in “the same account structure as cash.”[13]

Using XRP in the business’s own operations is a different matter. When the Hidden Road deal closed, Ripple wrote that “RLUSD is being used as collateral for a number of prime brokerage products,” while its infrastructure, “as well as the use of XRP, will complement the services offered within Ripple Prime,” a statement about the future.[3] Whether Ripple Prime has moved its post-trade activity onto the XRP Ledger is not publicly known. In its November 5, 2025 release, Ripple said Ripple Prime “is now expanding into collateralized lending for XRP,” and that RLUSD crossed a $1 billion market cap in less than a year since launch.

How does Ripple’s acquisition spending compare with Coinbase’s or Circle’s?

The price Coinbase announced for Deribit is bigger than any of Ripple’s deals. On May 8, 2025, Coinbase said it was “acquiring Deribit for approximately $2.9 billion, comprised of $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock.”[14] That one deal is a little more than Ripple’s four disclosed acquisition prices combined, about $2.7 billion. Ripple’s two largest deals, $1.25 billion and $1 billion, are each less than half the Deribit price (our calculation).

What is the case that the deals do not help XRP?

The strongest critique is an analysis by crypto.news on July 25, 2026. It walked through the acquired businesses and asked what each needs XRP for: “Corporate treasury runs on fiat. Rail runs on stablecoins. Custody is asset-agnostic by definition.” It weighed a “generous reading,” that the businesses keep options open for XRP, against an “ungenerous reading,” that “the company has spent three years and $4 billion methodically reducing its dependence on the asset its community holds.” It said the audit “cannot resolve which reading wins,” but that only one of them “is what the money did.”[15] The facts above fit part of that argument: RLUSD was in use as collateral at closing, while XRP use was described as coming later.[3] They also show the other side: two of the businesses now offer XRP to their clients.[12][13] How much of Ripple’s growth reaches XRP holders at all is argued on does Ripple’s success lift XRP.