Today Ripple announced it agreed to acquire Standard Custody & Trust Company, which holds a New York Limited Purpose Trust Charter. It holds one of just nine New York licensed crypto trust charters. Other NY trusts include well-known firms such as Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos. Ripple didn’t announce the terms of the deal.
Last year Ripple acquired digital asset custody firm Metaco for $250 million. Metaco has a raft of big name banks as clients. They include BNP Paribas Securities Services, Societe Generale Forge, HSBC and Standard Chartered’s Zodia Custody.
Standard Custody is no stranger to Ripple. The architects of Standard Custody’s technology are Arthur Britto and David Schwartz, who both co-created the XRP Ledger. Schwartz is Ripple’s current Chief Technology Officer, and Britto was the founder of PolySign, the parent of Standard Custody and a co-founder of Ripple.
In 2022 PolySign raised $53 million in Series C funding, which included Cowen Digital and Brevan Howard as backers. Last year TD Cowen shuttered Cowen Digital, but it advised Standard Custody on this transaction.
“Ripple and Standard Custody are dedicated to enabling enterprises to reap the benefits of blockchain across a host of financial use cases building institutional-grade solutions to tokenize, store, move, and exchange value,” said Monica Long, Ripple President. “By expanding our licenses portfolio and making smart acquisitions, Ripple is well-positioned to take advantage of the current market opportunities and further strengthen our crypto infrastructure solutions.”
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval. Ripple already owns 40 money transmitter licenses in the United States.
