Ripple Enters Wall Street Leveraged Financing: Funds Leveraged ETFs for Nvidia, SanDisk, and Others, Cutting into Traditional Banking Business

BlockBeats news, October 8: Ripple is entering the leveraged equity financing market through its Prime brokerage business, Ripple Prime, providing financing services for leveraged ETFs that bet on individual stocks such as Nvidia and SanDisk, as well as major indices, moving into a business area previously dominated by large banks and securities firms.

Ripple acquired multi-asset Prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion in 2025, thereby gaining clearing, financing, and trading capabilities across equities, bonds, foreign exchange, and digital asset markets. Ripple Prime can currently provide leveraged exposure to funds through total return swaps (TRS) and charge financing fees from it.

For example, the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF pays Ripple an overnight bank funding rate plus 4 percentage points, which at current rates translates to an annualized financing cost of about 8%, excluding ETF management fees.

Morningstar Direct data shows that the U.S. market currently has 593 leveraged ETFs, with more than $256 billion in assets under management, of which 426 track individual stocks. As banks face stricter capital and risk regulation, non-bank institutions such as Ripple Prime, Jane Street, and Clear Street are gaining more market space.

Ripple launched its Delta One business in August this year, offering total return swap products linked to U.S. equities, indices, and digital assets, and disclosed regulatory net capital of more than $1 billion. Ripple has not yet disclosed the specific revenue of its leveraged ETF financing business, nor has it said how much of that business uses XRP or the XRP Ledger.