Ripple has announced the acquisition of Metaco, a Switzerland-based provider of digital asset custody and tokenisation technology, for $250 million (£201.1m).
The acquisition is aimed at expanding Ripple’s enterprise offerings, with Metaco promising enterprise-ready packages for financial service providers and corporates across multiple digital asset use cases around custody infrastructure.
The company’s primary product is Harmonize, cited by Ripple as the ‘institutional standard for digital asset custody and tokenisation infrastructure.’ Current customers include Citi, BNP Paribas, and Union Bank.
Metaco was advised on the sale by law firm Kirkland & Ellis.
Monica Long, president at Ripple, said the company was ‘uniquely positioned’ to address the growing institutional crypto custody market. “Custody is a key facet of the infrastructure required for enterprise crypto services,” said Long in a statement. “Adding these capabilities to Ripple’s already growing product solutions means we can continue to support customers as they look to utilise crypto and blockchain for real-world use cases across all phases of adoption.”
Ripple estimates that the institutional crypto custody market will hit $10 trillion by 2030.
The move is Ripple’s first acquisition, with CEO Brad Garlinghouse saying that through the company’s financial position, it will ‘continue pressing [its] advantage in the areas critical to crypto infrastructure.’
“Bringing on Metaco is monumental for our growing product suite and expanding global footprint,” Garlinghouse added.
It has been a good week for Ripple all told. Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could not seal documents related to a 2018 speech from former official William Hinman which argued Ethereum was not a security. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the documents were ‘relevant to the judicial process.’
The update, in a years-long legal battle between the SEC and Ripple, is being seen as ‘another win for transparency’, as Garlinghouse put it. Ripple’s position is that XRP, its native cryptocurrency, is not a security, pushing against the SEC’s claims – and understanding how Hinman came to his conclusion five years ago would be key for the company.
Photo by John Guccione www.advergroup.com
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