Earlier this year, Ripple announced its intent to acquire Standard Custody & Trust Company, an enterprise-grade regulated custodian for digital assets.
The acquisition received the necessary regulatory approvals and is now complete. This is an exciting new chapter for Ripple to strengthen its existing product offerings and explore new, complementary products like stablecoins—underpinned by a commitment to regulatory compliance. Ripple’s track record of working with global regulators and policymakers is underscored by the belief that in order for blockchain to become integral to the global financial infrastructure, the industry needs to build alongside regulatory and compliance regimes, rather than around them.
The closing of this acquisition adds a limited purpose trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services to its license portfolio, which includes nearly 40 money transmitter licenses throughout the U.S. as well as a Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration with the Central Bank of Ireland. This enables the company to further strengthen its enterprise infrastructure solutions powered by blockchain and digital asset technology, allowing for better institutional customer service to tokenize, store, move and exchange value.
This deal closure follows close on the heels of Ripple announcing its plans to launch a USD-backed stablecoin—a natural step for Ripple to continue bridging the gap between blockchain and traditional finance. There is huge demand for stablecoins that deliver trust, stability and utility, and Ripple will leverage its decade-plus of experience building real-world financial solutions for global institutions to address this growing market. Ripple will use both the stablecoin and XRP in its payments solution to continue serving enterprise customers around the world. Ripple’s stablecoin will be issued on XRP Ledger to help bring more liquidity to XRPL’s native DEX, and to support more financial use cases on the Ledger for developers, users and businesses alike.
To that end, Ripple is excited to announce the appointment of Jack McDonald as Senior Vice President of Stablecoins, while he maintains his current role as CEO of Standard Custody. With over three decades of experience working with investment banks, asset managers, financial services and, more recently, fintechs and digital assets, Jack brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to help lead the stablecoin team and bring Ripple’s stablecoin to market.
Standard Custody is the second major acquisition by Ripple in the last year, following the acquisition of Metaco in May 2023—the leading provider of institutional digital asset custody solutions. Both moves underscore the growing breadth and importance of digital assets; from stablecoins and CBDCs to tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) like stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate and more. Market participants require trust, utility and liquidity in order to unlock access to these new asset classes and the broader token economy, and Ripple is committed to accelerating that growth.
Ripple will continue to leverage its strong financial position to make smart acquisitions, and to further cement the company’s leadership in the enterprise blockchain space. From cross-border payments to digital asset custody and beyond, having the right licenses in place to better serve customers and adhere to regulatory compliance is a critical next step in paving the way for institutional adoption of blockchain technology.