Ripple has introduced that it has acquired Metaco, a Swiss-based cryptocurrency custody firm, for $250 million in money and Ripple shares. With this choice, Ripple will broaden its choices as it should now be capable of maintain, problem and settle any kind of tokenized asset.

“Metaco is a acknowledged chief within the custody of institutional digital property with an distinctive management bench and a really unmatched consumer observe document,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse mentioned in a press release. “With our robust stability sheet and monetary place, Ripple will proceed to drive our edge in important areas of crypto infrastructure. The arrival of Metaco is monumental for our rising product line and increasing world footprint.

Ripple is the corporate behind the Ripple fee protocol which makes use of XRP as its native cryptocurrency. Ripple has labored with conventional monetary firms to allow them to combine crypto and blockchain into their infrastructure. Though Ripple and XRP are technically separate entities, Ripple nonetheless owns a considerable amount of XRP tokens.

In 2020, Ripple and its workforce confronted a lawsuit from the US Securities and Trade Fee because of the nature of XRP token gross sales. The SEC argued that XRP is a safety and may have been registered with the fee. It ought to be famous that Ripple and a handful of executives have generated over $1.38 billion from gross sales of the XRP token.

With immediately’s announcement, Ripple is diversifying its enterprise. Metaco works with institutional shoppers to supply them with a number of enterprise-grade options, reminiscent of custody, orchestration, buying and selling and extra.

Following immediately’s transaction, Metaco will proceed to function as an impartial model and enterprise unit, however Metaco now has a brand new proprietor. This might point out that Ripple needs to make use of its stability sheet to construct a portfolio of cryptocurrency-focused companies and bounce again from the SEC row.