Ripple is expanding access to 24/7 trading in stocks, gold and oil through its institutional brokerage platform, Ripple Prime. However, HSBC has warned that insufficient liquidity could prevent the service from attracting significant institutional demand.
Daragh Maher, HSBC’s head of digital assets research, characterized the launch as an incremental development rather than a major breakthrough in a client note issued Monday and shared with CoinDesk.
Maher said the market is growing rapidly but remains small compared with the traditional financial markets it tracks. He added that the service would become more useful when sufficient liquidity allows investors to establish positions and adjust their risk exposure outside conventional trading hours.
Ripple Prime, previously called Hidden Road, allows clients to trade swaps connected to more than 100 markets, including equities, commodities and currencies. These contracts enable traders to speculate on price movements without directly owning the underlying assets. Ripple confirmed in its Oct. 15 announcement that trading firm Virtu had begun using the platform.
The swaps follow perpetual futures listed on Trade.xyz, a platform offering stock and commodity contracts through the Hyperliquid derivatives exchange. Because perpetual futures have no expiration date and trade continuously, investors can maintain exposure to assets such as gold even when traditional financial markets are closed.
Clients can manage collateral and risk through Ripple Prime, which also supports the use of RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, to back trading positions. Ripple integrated its brokerage operation with Hyperliquid in February.
Nevertheless, limited liquidity remains a major obstacle for institutional investors seeking to execute large orders. Funds trading millions of dollars need enough buyers and sellers to complete transactions without significant price movements.
Recent volatility highlighted these risks. Nearly $52 million in leveraged chip-stock positions were liquidated within 10 minutes as selling pressure spread from Binance to Hyperliquid. With the underlying stock markets closed, the contracts lacked fresh share-price data, exposing participants to additional uncertainty.
HSBC expects initial activity to be driven largely by market makers, proprietary trading firms and hedge funds seeking to profit from price discrepancies between related markets. Such strategies, known as basis trades, focus on differences between the prices of connected assets or contracts.
According to Maher, wider institutional participation will depend on whether trading depth improves enough to support larger positions and more effective risk management.
HSBC also said Ripple must demonstrate clear advantages over traditional brokers and trading venues, particularly through lower fees, simpler trading processes and more efficient use of client collateral.
Ripple has already begun earning fees by financing leveraged stock positions, entering a business historically dominated by banks, CoinDesk reported earlier this month.
The new swaps are currently offered under Ripple Prime’s British Virgin Islands license, with expansion into additional jurisdictions planned. Ripple has identified an early customer but has not disclosed the total trading volume generated by the service.
