Ripple is allowing institutional clients to trade contracts linked to stocks, gold, oil and other assets around the clock, including weekends. However, HSBC has warned that the market is still small and may not attract large amounts of money until more buyers and sellers join.
Ripple’s brokerage business, Ripple Prime, now offers contracts linked to more than 100 markets, including shares, commodities and currencies. The service allows clients to take positions on price movements without buying the actual assets. HSBC described the move as an important development, but said its success would depend on whether the market becomes large enough to support bigger trades.
JUST IN: Ripple launches 24/7 institutional stock trading via Ripple Prime, accepting $RLUSD as collateral. https://t.co/QKT3EX8Bpn
— Whale Insider (@WhaleInsider) October 21, 2026
Daragh Maher, head of digital assets research at HSBC, called the launch an “evolutionary, not revolutionary” step in a note to clients on Monday. He said the market was growing quickly but remained small compared with traditional financial markets. In his view, the service would become more useful when investors could trade in larger amounts and manage risks while regular stock and commodity markets were closed.
Ripple Prime, earlier known as Hidden Road, offers swaps linked to more than 100 markets. A swap is a contract through which traders can gain or lose money based on changes in an asset’s price, without owning the asset itself. Trading firm Virtu is already using the service, according to Ripple’s October 15 announcement.
The contracts track perpetual futures listed by Trade.xyz, a platform that offers stock and commodity contracts on the crypto derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. Perpetual futures do not have an expiry date and can be traded throughout the day and night. This means a fund can take a position on gold or a stock on Sunday, even when traditional markets are closed.
Clients can manage their collateral and trading risks through Ripple Prime. They can also use RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin linked to the US dollar, to support their trades. Ripple had already connected its brokerage business to Hyperliquid in February.
However, trading around the clock also brings risks. A recent market event showed how quickly positions can be closed when prices move sharply. Nearly $52 million worth of leveraged positions linked to chip stocks were forcibly closed within 10 minutes as selling spread from Binance to Hyperliquid. Since the actual shares were not trading at the time, the contracts had no fresh stock-market prices to follow. This exposed the risks of trading such products when traditional markets are closed.
HSBC expects early activity to come mainly from market makers, trading firms and hedge funds. These firms may try to earn profits from price differences between related markets rather than use the contracts mainly to protect their investments against risk.
The bank also said Ripple’s long-term success would depend on whether its service was cheaper, simpler and more efficient than existing brokers. Ripple is already earning fees by financing leveraged stock trades, expanding into a business traditionally dominated by banks.
The new swaps are currently offered under Ripple Prime’s British Virgin Islands licence, with plans to enter more jurisdictions. Ripple has named one early customer but has not disclosed the total trading volume so far.
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