Ripple Enters Leveraged ETF Financing as Ripple Prime Expands Beyond Crypto

Ripple is expanding its institutional financial services business into leveraged exchange-traded fund financing through Ripple Prime, the brokerage platform built following its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road in 2025. The business offers financing and total return swaps, placing Ripple in a market that extends beyond cryptocurrency trading and into traditional financial products. The move highlights the company’s broader effort to serve institutional clients across digital assets and conventional markets.

One example is financing linked to the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF, a leveraged fund designed to deliver twice the daily performance of SanDisk shares before fees and expenses. The reported financing arrangement charges the overnight bank funding rate plus four percentage points. This structure gives Ripple Prime a role in financing leveraged investment strategies, where borrowing costs and daily market movements can materially affect returns.

Total return swaps allow clients to gain economic exposure to an asset without necessarily owning it directly. Depending on the agreement, the parties exchange payments linked to the asset’s performance and associated financing costs. Such arrangements are common in institutional markets, but they introduce counterparty, collateral and leverage risks that require careful management.

Ripple’s entry into this segment follows its acquisition of Hidden Road, a global multi-asset prime brokerage business. Rebranding the business as Ripple Prime gave Ripple a platform for serving institutions that need trading, clearing, financing and related brokerage services. Rather than relying exclusively on growth in XRP payments or blockchain infrastructure, Ripple can pursue revenue from services used by financial institutions across multiple asset classes.

Nonbank Firms Expand as Banks Face Capital Constraints

The broader development comes as nonbank financial firms compete for business traditionally handled by banks and established brokerages. Stricter capital requirements can influence how banks allocate balance sheets and price certain financing activities. Nonbank providers may find opportunities to serve clients whose needs are not fully met by traditional institutions, although their own funding costs, risk controls and regulatory obligations remain important factors.

Financing leveraged ETFs can be commercially attractive, but the products carry risks beyond those associated with ordinary share ownership. A fund targeting twice an underlying asset’s daily return typically resets its exposure each day, meaning its performance over longer periods can diverge substantially from twice the asset’s cumulative return. Financing costs add another consideration for investors and counterparties using leverage.

Ripple Prime’s expansion also illustrates how digital-asset companies are seeking institutional revenue streams that do not depend solely on token prices. Prime brokerage, collateral management and financing services can connect crypto-focused businesses with conventional markets. However, the long-term opportunity depends on client demand, execution quality, risk management and the ability to compete with established financial providers.

Paxos Adds XRP as XRPL Develops Permission Delegation

Separately, Paxos has added XRP support to its regulated platform, according to the supplied report. The development is relevant to institutional participants seeking services such as trading and custody through established infrastructure providers. The precise scope of availability, supported jurisdictions and applicable customer eligibility requirements should be confirmed through Paxos’s official documentation before institutions rely on the service.

The addition could make XRP accessible within another institutional service environment, but platform support alone does not guarantee increased transaction volumes or sustained demand for the token. The practical effect will depend on how customers use the service, which functions are available and whether XRP fits their operational and investment requirements.

Meanwhile, the XRP Ledger is preparing Permission Delegation, a feature intended to let users authorize other parties or applications to perform designated tasks without handing over their private keys. If implemented with clearly defined permissions and appropriate safeguards, this could make it easier to automate selected wallet actions while retaining control over the underlying account. The feature’s final capabilities and security model will be important to its usefulness.

Taken together, Ripple Prime’s financing business, Paxos’s XRP support and the XRP Ledger’s planned delegation functionality point to different parts of the institutional adoption picture. Brokerage and financing services target traditional market activity, while custody and blockchain features address digital-asset access and operational security. These developments do not guarantee a higher XRP price, but they provide concrete areas to monitor as Ripple and the wider XRP ecosystem pursue deeper connections with institutional finance.