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Is Ripple’s Hidden Road deal part of a SoftBank-like playbook?
Ripple has made a slew of acquisitions to control key transaction rails and route them through XRP and its stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), drawing comparisons to Japanese investment firm SoftBank.
The $1.25-billion acquisition of Hidden Road on April 8 allows Ripple to use RLUSD as collateral in the firm’s prime brokerage products. Hidden Road will also migrate its post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger, the blockchain that underpins cryptocurrency XRP
$2.34
and several of Ripple’s institutional services.
Omni Network founder and CEO Austin King knows Ripple’s strategy firsthand. He sold his startup, Strata Labs, to Ripple in 2019 and describes the approach as a “SoftBank-type” acquisition strategy.
Instead of in-house development like Google or Meta (formerly Facebook), SoftBank built its empire through aggressive investments, joint ventures and acquisitions. Ripple seems to be following a similar playbook, but not everyone’s convinced the comparison holds.
