Ripple has announced the integration of its institutional prime brokerage platform, Ripple Prime, with the decentralized perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid. This move provides Ripple's institutional clients with direct access to Hyperliquid's on-chain derivatives liquidity, enabling cross-margining of crypto exposures with other asset classes like fixed income, forex, and OTC swaps all within a single, regulated counterparty relationship.
Michael Higgins, International CEO of Ripple Prime, stated, "At Ripple Prime, we are excited to continue leading the way in merging decentralized finance with traditional prime brokerage services... This strategic extension of our prime brokerage platform into DeFi will enhance our clients’ access to liquidity, providing the greater efficiency and innovation that our institutional clients demand." The integration is positioned as a major step in the convergence of traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi.
The partnership leverages Hyperliquid's dominant market position, which includes over 70% of on-chain derivatives volume, daily volumes of $13-15 billion, and an open interest of up to $5.8 billion. Its infrastructure features zero-gas fees, sub-second speed, and over 200,000 transactions per second.
For the XRP ecosystem, the integration is seen as a significant liquidity catalyst. XRP perpetual futures are already actively traded on Hyperliquid, and the direct institutional access via Ripple Prime is expected to potentially increase capital inflows and market depth for XRP derivatives. This development follows Ripple's recent regulatory progress, including securing a preliminary electronic money institution license in Luxembourg.
