Ripple has announced the acquisition of metaco<\/a>a Switzerland-based provider of digital asset custody and tokenisation technology, for $250 million (\u00a3201.1m).<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Metaco was advised on the sale by law firm Kirkland & Ellis.<\/p>\n Monica Long, president at Ripple, said the company was ‘uniquely positioned’ to address the growing institutional crypto custody market. \u201cCustody is a key facet of the infrastructure required for enterprise crypto services,\u201d said Long in a statement. \u201cAdding these capabilities to Ripple’s already growing product solutions means we can continue to support customers as they look to utilize crypto and blockchain for real-world use cases across all phases of adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n Ripple estimates that the institutional crypto custody market will hit $10 trillion by 2030.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cBringing on Metaco is monumental for our growing product suite and expanding global footprint,\u201d Garlinghouse added.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, Ripple’s position is that XRP, its native cryptocurrency, is not a security, pushing against the SEC’s claims \u2013 and understanding how Hinman came to his conclusion five years ago would be key for the company.<\/p>\n
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