Ripple Expands Institutional Reach with Strategic Acquisition of Palisade

The acquisition brings together Ripple's bank-grade vault infrastructure with Palisade's "wallet-as-a-service" model, designed to help financial institutions, fintechs, and corporations deploy and manage digital assets at scale. Ripple said the combined capabilities will allow clients to store, move, and interact with digital assets through a unified platform built for security and regulatory compliance.

Ripple’s President Monica Long said that secure digital-asset custody has become foundational to the modern blockchain economy. “Secure digital-asset custody unlocks the crypto economy and is the foundation that every blockchain-powered business stands on,” Long stated in the company’s announcement.

Ripple's custody unit, Ripple Custody, already serves leading global financial institutions and technology firms. The addition of Palisade lets Ripple deliver vault-grade custody for long-term storage and wallet-level infrastructure for faster on-chain operations.

Palisade’s platform includes multi-party computation (MPC) for cryptographic security, zero-trust architecture to eliminate single-point failures, multi-chain support, and rapid wallet provisioning for enterprise clients managing digital assets across different blockchains. By integrating these features, Ripple aims to create a single custody environment capable of supporting tokenized assets, stablecoins, and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications within institutional compliance frameworks.

According to Ripple, combining Palisade's lightweight wallet system with its existing vault technology will position the company to offer an end-to-end custody solution. Institutions can store assets securely, enable real-time settlement, and access liquidity within the same infrastructure, removing dependence on fragmented providers.

Ripple’s latest acquisition comes amid a global shift toward institutional adoption of blockchain technology and a growing demand for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). Custody is viewed as a critical layer in that transformation, bridging traditional finance and decentralized systems while ensuring security, transparency, and compliance.

The company said the acquisition underscores its confidence in custody as the core of institutional crypto adoption. As blockchain becomes embedded into global financial systems, Ripple envisions custody services as the underlying foundation that enables tokenization, payments, and asset movement across borders.

Ripple emphasized that this expansion supports its broader mission to “build the Internet of Value,” allowing money to move as easily as information does online. The company continues to develop enterprise-grade products designed to help financial institutions transition into a tokenized economy with minimal operational friction.

Ripple Custody is designed to fit institutional needs pertaining to security certifications, governance, and compliance. It maintains more than 75 different regulatory licenses and registrations in the world, a continuous result of its engagement with authorities to ascertain that its services are meeting jurisdictional standards.

The inclusion of Palisade enhances Ripple’s ability to provide both cold-storage vaults and high-throughput transactional wallets, a combination that is increasingly demanded by global banks, fintechs, and asset managers entering the digital-asset space.

Ripple described the merged service as “comprehensive digital-asset custody infrastructure,” enabling clients to manage not only crypto assets but also tokenized representations of traditional assets in the future. This dual focus on custody and tokenization positions Ripple to play a larger role in the evolving landscape of enterprise blockchain adoption.

The acquisition of Palisade adds to Ripple’s expanding institutional portfolio, which already includes Ripple Payments, the company’s cross-border payments network used by banks and remittance providers globally and other institutional products designed to streamline financial operations using blockchain technology.

Ripple noted that the acquisition fits into a broader growth strategy targeting corporates, fintechs, and financial institutions that need secure access to blockchain-based payment, liquidity, and asset-management tools. The integration of Palisade’s technology is expected to accelerate Ripple’s product development pipeline and enhance interoperability across its institutional offerings.

In the official announcement, Ripple said it is continuing to invest in the core infrastructure of the crypto economy, with custody forming the “foundation for all future blockchain use cases.” The firm described Palisade’s engineering and product expertise as complementary to its existing technology stack and said both teams will work closely to expand institutional access to blockchain infrastructure worldwide.

Though Ripple did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, the messaging from the company suggests the acquisition was part of a long-term bet on the institutionalization of blockchain finance. This is a space where integrated custody and wallet systems are expected to become indispensable as traditional financial institutions explore tokenization of deposits, bonds, and real-world assets.

By acquiring Palisade, Ripple signals its intent to move beyond payments into holistic financial infrastructure, creating a single trusted layer for digital-asset storage, movement, and management. The move reflects Ripple’s vision of becoming a leading global provider of blockchain solutions for regulated enterprises.

Ripple said the Palisade acquisition is now complete, and both teams are already working on the integration phase to deliver a seamless custody experience for institutional clients. The company reaffirmed its commitment to supporting secure, compliant, and scalable digital-asset adoption across industries.

For Ripple, this acquisition represents more than a technological upgrade, it is an affirmation that institutional custody is now the backbone of blockchain’s next era. As enterprises increasingly turn to blockchain for payments, treasury, and asset management, the ability to unify vault-grade security with wallet-level usability may prove decisive in shaping how global institutions adopt crypto infrastructure in the years ahead.