Today, @Ripple announced the acquisition of Hidden Road for $1.25B, one of the largest deals ever in the crypto space. But the price tag isn’t what’s most important – it’s that this deal marks a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for crypto to access the largest and most trusted traditional markets, and vice versa. Prime brokers (along with other key functions historically managed by banks for the most part) like Hidden Road have proven themselves as *the* trusted intermediary for the largest hedge funds, market makers, OTC desks, quant traders and more. Ripple has been a customer of Hidden Road for years, and we know their breadth of expertise firsthand, clearing $3 TRILLION annually for 300+ of the top financial institutions globally. This is the capital and activity that will tap into XRP and the XRP Ledger’s bread-and-butter – instant, efficient, scalable and low cost movement of value. Instead of waiting for <24 hours to settle trades through fiat rails, Hidden Road will be using XRPL for clearing a portion of trades, and most consequentially, using RLUSD as collateral across its prime brokerage services, including cross-asset (crypto and traditional instrument) trades. With this deal and the backing of Ripple’s significant balance sheet, Hidden Road will exponentially expand its capacity to service its pipeline and become the largest non-bank prime broker globally. Ripple and Hidden Road combined are a generational leap forward, ready to truly bring the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance together. ripple.com/ripple-press/ripp…

Suffice it to say (as I know there are lots of impatient people, including me!), this SEC has demonstrated a clear interest in moving on quickly (!) from the failed regulation by enforcement policies of the last Administration. 😄

Some thoughts on maximalism… let me say this as clearly as I can – the crypto industry has a real shot, here and now, to achieve the many goals we have in common, IF we work together instead of tearing each other down. This is not, and never will be, a zero-sum game. • I own XRP, BTC, and ETH among a handful of others – we live in a multichain world, and I’ve advocated for a level-playing field, instead of one token versus another. • If a govt digital asset reserve is created - I believe it should be representative of the industry, not just one token (whether it be BTC, XRP or anything else). • Maximalism remains the enemy of crypto progress, and I’m very glad to see fewer and fewer folks ascribe to this outdated and misinformed thinking.