Ripple enters leveraged stock financing through acquisition of Hidden Road, begins earning Wall Street-style brokerage fees

BlockBeats news, October 8: Ripple is providing financing for leveraged equity ETFs through its Ripple Prime unit and earning financing fees from the related trades, entering a business long dominated by large Wall Street banks and securities firms.

Ripple acquired multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion in 2025, after which it gained the ability to clear trades, finance investment positions, and handle transactions in equities, bonds, foreign exchange, and digital assets. Now, Ripple Prime has begun providing funds with leveraged exposure to stocks and indices through total return swaps.

The related business allows funds to amplify the daily price moves of individual stocks such as Nvidia and SanDisk, while Ripple collects financing fees. For example, the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF pays Ripple a fee of the overnight bank funding rate plus 4 percentage points, which at current rates translates to an annualized financing cost of about 8%.

The U.S. market currently has 593 leveraged ETFs, with assets under management exceeding $256 billion. CoinDesk noted that as bank capital and risk regulatory requirements tighten, non-bank institutions including Ripple Prime, Jane Street, and Clear Street are gaining more opportunities to enter this market.