According to Bloomberg, Ripple is expanding its presence in traditional finance: its brokerage division, Ripple Prime, is launching a service that will provide institutional investors with access to perpetual futures on stocks, commodities, and other traditional assets. Clients will have access to over 100 markets, including stocks, stock indices, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and commodities.
The launch comes amid the rapid growth of perpetual contracts on real assets: open interest in them on several major platforms has grown from nearly zero to about $9 billion over the year. Unlike regular futures, perpetual contracts do not have an expiration date, allowing users to hold leveraged positions without rolling them over into new contracts.
The new products are offered through Trade.xyz, a major trading platform for perpetual contracts on traditional assets on the decentralized platform Hyperliquid. In February of this year, Ripple Prime already launched perpetual futures on cryptocurrencies, developing a comprehensive trading solution for institutional clients. The service includes cross-margining: the same collateral can be used for different positions without requiring separate margin for each trade.
According to international CEO of Ripple Prime, Michael Higgins, such a scheme could allow institutional clients to manage capital more efficiently and access new liquidity pools. He also noted that clients will be able to access these markets through a "more regulated" infrastructure.
The growing market for perpetual contracts on real assets is attracting hedge funds and professional market makers. According to Higgins, institutional traders are exploring different strategies. In particular, some investors are considering basis trades: simultaneous positions on perps and underlying assets to exploit price discrepancies without bearing overall market risk. Higgins also stated that traditional hedge funds are about to gain direct access to tokenized real assets.
This material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation.
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