🤑 Crypto Giant Splashes $1.25B on Wall Street Firm in Most Extra Power Move Ever!

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Oh my God, you guys! 😱 You’ll never believe what Ripple Labs just did – they went full “loaded tech bro” and dropped a casual $1.25 billion on Hidden Road like it’s nothing. I mean, who hasn’t impulsively bought a prime brokerage firm on a Monday, right? 💁‍♀️

But wait, they’re being all “it’s not about the money” (sure, Jan 🙄). They’re claiming it’s about “bridging gaps” and stuff, which sounds like what I tell myself when I’m justifying buying designer shoes for “professional networking.”

Hidden Road is like that popular kid in school who knows EVERYONE – they’re besties with 300 financial institutions and handle $3 trillion annually. That’s basically my yearly coffee budget, but whatever. 💅

When Tech Meets Finance: A Love Story (Sort of)

So now Ripple gets to hang with the cool finance kids, which is totally not why they did this *winks aggressively*. Brad Garlinghouse (their CEO who’s definitely not flexing) went on X to humble-brag about it:

Today, @Ripple announced the acquisition of Hidden Road for $1.25B, one of the largest deals ever in the crypto space. But the price tag isn’t what’s most important – it’s that this deal marks a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for crypto to access the largest and most trusted…

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) April 8, 2025

Fun fact: Ripple’s been secretly dating Hidden Road for years as a customer. Talk about playing the long game! 😏

They’re planning to use something called XRPL to make everything faster, because apparently waiting for money to move is sooo 2023. It’s like Uber Eats but for rich people’s money. 🏃‍♀️💨

And get this – they’re not even in trouble with the SEC anymore! It’s like when you finally pay off your parking tickets and can show your face at the DMV again. 🎉

Fancy Finance Gets a Digital Makeover

Ripple’s basically becoming the Instagram influencer of institutional DeFi (that’s fancy speak for “digital money stuff”). They’ve got more licenses than I have unsuccessful dating app matches, which is really saying something. 📱

Marc Asch from Hidden Road is all excited about it too, probably because he just made bank. But he’s keeping it professional, talking about “service capacity” and “new products” like he didn’t just hit the corporate lottery. 🎰

Now they just need some boring regulatory people to say “yes” before they can make it official. It’s like waiting for your parents’ approval to get that tattoo, except with billions of dollars involved. 🤷‍♀️

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2025-04-08 21:40