Ripple’s prime brokerage business, Ripple Prime, built through its acquisition of Hidden Road, is expanding financial infrastructure for institutions. But an analysis says it is hard to view this as leading directly to a rise in XRP prices.

On Sept. 12, blockchain media outlet U.Today reported that Ripple is expanding digital-asset infrastructure for institutions by bundling prime brokerage, custody, stablecoins and payments. It added that XRP is no longer the only key asset in this business.

Ripple Prime is based on Hidden Road, which Ripple acquired for $1.25 billion. The deal was completed in October 2025, and Hidden Road was later reorganised into Ripple Prime. Ripple said the acquisition made it the first crypto company to directly own and operate a global multi-asset prime broker.

Hidden Road had been a provider that cleared more than $3 trillion a year across multiple asset classes for more than 300 institutional clients before the acquisition. Ripple says it now provides multi-asset clearing, cross-margining, portfolio financing and risk-based financing across traditional and digital asset markets through its prime business.

The key is to bring institutional investors’ trading structure into one place. In the existing crypto market, exchanges, custodians, liquidity providers and credit agreements are fragmented, so institutions often have to build separate relationships. Ripple is presenting a plan to enable access to multiple markets through centralised credit and clearing infrastructure. It emphasised a direction that treats digital assets alongside traditional assets rather than as an isolated market by focusing on a multi-asset structure.

But that structure does not automatically create demand for XRP. Institutional clients may use Ripple Prime without putting XRP at the centre of their investment strategy. The outlet pointed out that a multi-asset prime broker does not naturally guarantee demand for any single cryptocurrency.

Even so, Ripple says it is keeping XRP as the central axis of its strategy. Brad Garlinghouse (브래드 갈링하우스), Ripple’s CEO, said early this year that XRP is Ripple’s “north star”. He mentioned Ripple Payments, Ripple Prime, Ripple Treasury, custody and RLUSD, and said all of those businesses are focused on boosting utility, trust and liquidity around XRP and the XRP Ledger. He also called XRP Ripple’s “heartbeat” and defined Ripple as a financial infrastructure platform company.

Ripple’s business axis is also broadening. It initially had a strong image as a blockchain-based cross-border payments company, but it has now expanded its portfolio beyond payments to custody, stablecoin payments, treasury services and prime brokerage. RLUSD is also taking an increasingly important position as an institutional payment and collateral asset. For that reason, it is hard to view Ripple as having completely moved away from XRP, but the broader institutional business appears to be gradually moving away from relying on XRP as a single asset.

XRP’s price has shown a strong recovery in recent weeks, but its upward momentum has weakened somewhat in September. XRP started around $1.10 in early August and rose to about $1.42 on Sept. 6, and it at one point approached $1.44 on Sept. 8 and 9. It later fell back to the $1.35 to $1.37 range on Sept. 11 and 12. Despite the recent pullback, it is still about 24 to 25 percent higher than in early August.

Moves by large holders were also a factor the market watched. On-chain data showed that wallets holding 1 million to 10 million XRP increased their holdings early in the rally. According to the original text, those wallets accumulated an additional 642 million tokens as XRP rose from $1.00 to $1.70.

A potential turning point for short-term volatility is a procedural vote in the U.S. Senate on the Clarity bill on the 15th. The bill sets the legal status of digital assets and divides regulatory authority between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The market is watching what signal the vote will send on regulatory uncertainty across digital assets, including XRP.

Ultimately, Ripple Prime is less a business that replaces XRP than a process of Ripple shifting into a broader institutional financial services company. Ripple continues to cite XRP as part of its current strategy, but an expansion of prime brokerage alone does not allow a definitive call on XRP’s price or demand. Future focus is expected to be on whether actual institutional trading through Ripple Prime leads to use of XRP and RLUSD, and how the market reacts after the regulatory vote on the 15th.