Ripple has just pulled off one of the biggest plays in crypto history, buying prime brokerage giant Hidden Road for $1.25 billion.

According to some industry watchers, this isn’t just another corporate deal: it’s about infrastructure, utility, and creating a direct pipeline for institutional money to flow into XRP and the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

The Prime Broker Power Play

For years, Ripple focused on retail remittances and enterprise payments. However, pseudonymous XRP advocate WrathofKahneman noted that the strategy has evolved, with real opportunities in institutional treasury flows and liquidity management.

Hidden Road is not your typical crypto acquisition, given that it clears over $3 trillion in volume every year and serves more than 300 of the world’s top hedge funds, market makers, OTC desks, and trading firms. The prime broker also plugs directly into major exchanges like Coinbase, Bitfinex, and OKX. Now, Ripple controls that gateway.

“Ripple is no longer just building around traditional financial infrastructure, they bought it,” said the analyst.

This means that XRP and its sister stablecoin, RLUSD, can be integrated directly into institutional trading flows. With rumors of a partnership with Cardano brewing, the payment company’s ecosystem could expand quite quickly.

More importantly, Ripple’s top executive, Brad Garlinghouse, confirmed that Hidden Road will use XRPL for post-trade settlement on some transactions. That’s a huge deal. It unlocks a corporate-scale clearing and credit engine for the American fintech company.

Institutions won’t have to wait hours or days for traditional banking systems to finalize trades; instead, they’ll be able to settle instantly on the XRP Ledger. In essence, Ripple isn’t just enabling faster payments; it’s positioning XRP as the bridge between crypto and mainstream finance.

XRP is now potentially embedded in markets far larger than retail payments,” wrote WrathofKahneman, explaining how XRPL is designed for settling trades and facilitating cross-border liquidity, with XRP at its core.

The analyst also pointed to a potential “flywheel effect” where more liquidity on XRPL would make its native token more useful, further driving adoption.

Additionally, he rebutted fears that Ripple’s stablecoin would replace XRP:

RLUSD is stable and regulated, fitting institutional risk tolerances. But moving, trading, and bridging liquidity will still require XRP.

XRP’s Price Outlook

Despite the bullish news, XRP dropped 3% to $1.80 in 24 hours. Additionally, in the last week, the asset is down 13%, significantly worse than the rest of the crypto market, which shed nearly 8% in that period.

However, optimism remains. Standard Chartered recently projected the token could reach $5.50 by the end of the year and $12.50 by 2028. With Ripple building the pipes and XRP possibly being the water flowing through global finances, these predictions suddenly bear more weight.

As WrathofKahneman puts it, This is crypto at the adult table. No other blockchain has this level of integration with traditional finance. If successful, XRP could become the backbone of institutional liquidity management.