Key Notes
- Ripple is gaining ground in leveraged ETF swap financing, an institutional business long dominated by Wall Street banks.
- Ripple Prime launched equity swaps in August, extending a platform built around its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road.
- An expanded agreement gives Brevan Howard funds access to multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing and financing through Ripple Prime.
Ripple is becoming a competitor to Wall Street banks in swap financing for leveraged exchange-traded funds, The Wall Street Journal reported on October 7.
The expansion brings the company into a business that supports investors’ exposure to stocks and indexes. Its institutional platform, Ripple Prime, now combines equity derivatives with clearing, financing and services across traditional and digital assets.
Two recent announcements show how that strategy is developing: the August launch of an equity-swaps business and an expanded agreement this week to serve funds managed by Brevan Howard. Together, they place Ripple further inside the infrastructure used by professional investment managers.
The Financing Behind Leveraged ETFs
Leveraged ETFs typically seek a multiple of a benchmark’s daily return. A fund targeting 2x exposure, for example, aims to produce twice the benchmark’s performance for that day, before the effects of costs and other differences.
The SEC’s investor bulletin explains that these products can use swaps, futures and other derivatives to pursue their objectives. This creates a role for financial firms that provide the contracts and financing supporting that exposure, beyond the fund manager selling ETF shares to investors.
Daily resetting also makes these products distinct from an ordinary long-term stockholding. Returns over weeks or months can diverge substantially from the advertised daily multiple, particularly in volatile markets. Changing the institution providing financing does not remove that feature.
Ripple Prime launched its Delta One business on August 27. The offering enables institutional clients to execute total return swaps across U.S.-listed equities, indexes and digital assets. Such contracts provide exposure to an underlying investment’s returns without requiring the client to buy that investment directly.
Ripple said clients could combine these services with existing foreign-exchange, derivatives, fixed-income and digital-asset activities through one counterparty. Its platform supports cross-margining across those asset classes around the clock, a feature intended to make collateral use more efficient.
Brevan Howard Adds Institutional Weight
The company announced an expanded relationship with Brevan Howard on October 6. Ripple Prime will provide multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing and financing to the investment manager’s funds, giving them access to services across traditional and digital markets.
The announcement describes a broader institutional relationship than a payment-processing agreement. Prime brokerage brings together services that investment funds need to execute and finance positions, manage collateral and complete transactions across their portfolios.
Brevan Howard manages approximately $35 billion for institutional investors, according to the release. Its clients include pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, foundations and endowments. That asset-management figure describes Brevan Howard’s business; the announcement does not specify how much of it will use Ripple Prime.
The relationship also has an investment history. Funds managed by Brevan Howard affiliates participated in Ripple’s $500 million strategic investment in 2025. This week’s service agreement extends those existing ties, although its fees and revenue contribution were not disclosed.
Hidden Road Supplied the Foundation
Ripple’s route into prime brokerage came through its $1.25 billion Hidden Road acquisition, announced in April 2025. At the time, Ripple said the business cleared around $3 trillion annually across markets and served more than 300 institutional customers.
Those figures describe the acquired platform at the announcement date. Clearing volume measures transaction activity, rather than assets under management or revenue. It illustrates the operating infrastructure Ripple bought, while leaving the economics of individual client relationships to be assessed separately.
The company completed the acquisition in October 2025 and renamed the business Ripple Prime. The subsequent equity-derivatives launch extends an established platform with capabilities in foreign exchange, derivatives, fixed income and digital assets.
Capital Is Central to the Competition
Financing a client’s trading activity requires more than software. A provider needs capital, access to funding and controls for the exposures created by its contracts. These requirements help explain why Ripple Prime has raised additional financing as it expands.
On August 18, the business closed an upsized $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes. Ripple said the proceeds would support working capital and general corporate purposes within a regulated entity, including the growth of its U.S. business.
The notes received a BBB investment-grade rating from KBRA, according to the announcement. Separately, the August Delta One release reported more than $1 billion in regulatory net capital. Funding raised and regulatory capital measure different things, so the two amounts should not be added together as a single capital figure.
Stablecoins Connect With the Trading Business
Ripple has also linked its digital-dollar business to prime brokerage. When the Hidden Road acquisition closed, the company said its RLUSD stablecoin was already being used as collateral for several products, with some derivatives customers choosing to hold balances in it.
The connection gives Ripple a potential way to distribute settlement and collateral services alongside financing. As we previously reported, its wider institutional relationships also include an equity investment in OKX disclosed by the exchange’s founder this week.
The next measure of progress is how much repeat business Ripple Prime wins and the returns it earns on the capital committed. The announced products and client relationships establish a wider commercial footprint, while their contribution to group revenue and profitability remains undisclosed in those releases.
