Ripple Acquires Hidden Road Brokerage

CRYPTO
Ripple Acquires Hidden Road Brokerage

Ripple has announced its acquisition of multi-asset prime brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, making it one of the largest deals in digital asset history. Hidden Road, which clears over $3 trillion annually across FX, derivatives, digital assets, and fixed income markets for 300+ institutional clients, will significantly boost Ripple's institutional capabilities.

Ripple plans to inject capital into the firm to expand its clearing and financing operations, aiming to make it the world’s largest non-bank prime broker. The deal supports Ripple’s stablecoin push, as Hidden Road will adopt Ripple’s RLUSD as collateral—enabling efficient cross-margining between traditional and digital assets. Additionally, Hidden Road will migrate post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger, streamlining costs and settlement. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called this an “inflection point” as institutional adoption accelerates. Ripple already holds over 60 global regulatory licenses, and the deal is expected to close soon, pending regulatory approval.

TECH
Google Partners with Ai2 on AI

Google has deepened its commitment to open-source AI by partnering with the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), a nonprofit known for releasing fully open AI models and tools. Through this deal, Ai2’s models, including its powerful OLMo language models and multimodal Molmo models, will be available on Google Cloud. Unlike others in the space, Ai2 provides full transparency—releasing model code, training data, and post-training recipes.

This transparency appeals to government and regulated industry customers who need security, control, and customization. Ai2’s top model, OLMo 2 32B, outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini using fewer resources. The partnership also includes a joint $10 million donation to the Cancer AI Alliance, with Google providing infrastructure and Ai2 aiding model development. Google’s move builds on its release of the Gemma open-weight models and reflects growing demand for open AI systems. Ai2 CEO Ali Farhadi says this openness could eventually lead to more secure AI—just like Linux.

FINANCE
Trump Tariffs Disrupt Supply Chains

U.S. companies that moved production away from China during Trump’s first term are now reeling from his latest round of broad “reciprocal” tariffs, which target countries like Vietnam, India, and Taiwan—key alternatives in the "China Plus One" strategy. Many firms had shifted manufacturing to these nations to avoid China’s high tariffs, only to face new levies up to 46%.

Steve Greenspon, CEO of Honey-Can-Do, says the new tariffs on Vietnam and Taiwan are “crushing,” especially after years of investment. High labor costs and lacking infrastructure make reshoring to the U.S. unrealistic. Experts say Trump’s tariff policy disrupts global supply chains and increases costs for consumers. Some expect the tariffs to ease through negotiations, but companies are left in limbo. Restructuring supply chains is costly and slow, especially in high-tech sectors like Apple’s. Many firms may wait out the uncertainty, hoping for political change or trade deals that restore stability.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.