Ripple’s rapid expansion across the global finance space, along with the continued growth of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), has drawn significant attention from the broader market. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently spotlighted the company’s top five strategic acquisitions, emphasizing how these deals are shaping the crypto payment firm’s future and reinforcing XRP’s central role within the evolving ecosystem.
Ripple and XRP Ledger Solidify Global Position Through Acquisitions
In an X social media post on Friday, Garlinghouse confirmed that with the complete acquisition of Hidden Road, now rebranded as Ripple Prime, the crypto payments company has finalized five key takeovers in roughly two years. These include GTreasury, Rail, Standard Custody, Metaco, and now Ripple Prime. Each acquisition strengthens the company’s position in the global finance ecosystem and aligns with its vision to create what Garlinghouse calls an “internet of value,” where one moves as easily as information does online.
Garlinghouse emphasized in his post that XRP sits “at the center of everything Ripple does,” underscoring its vital role in the company’s growing range of financial products. Every acquisition, whether focused on liquidity management, custody, or settlement, aims to enhance how institutions leverage Ripple’s payment technology and, ultimately, the XRP Ledger to transfer value globally with greater efficiency and security.
Following Garlinghouse’s post, crypto market expert Crypto Sensei raised an important question about how the company’s new integration would handle settlement. He also asked whether the company’s stablecoin, RLUSD, which already lives on Ethereum, would also operate on the XRP Ledger. While the Ripple CEO has not confirmed the specifics, the community chimed in, suggesting that the payments firm plans to roll out RLUSD on XRPL soon. This would allow the recently acquired brokerage platform, Ripple Prime, to handle both liquidity and settlement natively on the ledger.
If this happens, the company could soon control everything from trade execution to settlement, with XRP acting as the core bridge asset. It’s a move that could help the company achieve its clear goals of integrating traditional financial infrastructure with blockchain-based liquidity.
The Firm Uses XRP In Landmark Equity Deal
In another major development, crypto enthusiast Diana announced that Ripple has confirmed through a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that it paid for a corporate acquisition using XRP as the payment currency. The filing by Armada Acquisition Corp II revealed that Ripple contributed 126,791,458 XRP, approximately $305 million, in exchange for equity units that would convert into PubCo Class A shares upon closing.
The transaction marks one of the first instances where XRP has been used directly as a financial instrument in a regulated equity deal. This move signifies a milestone for Ripple, especially since it officially concluded a 7-year lawsuit with the SEC earlier this year, which had alleged that XRP was a security.
According to Diana, the purchase will effectively transform XRP from a utility token into a form of institutional capital. The payment firm’s use of XRP as payment also comes on the heels of its GTreasury acquisition and its inclusion in the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committee, further embedding XRP into mainstream financial operations.
Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com
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