Ripple and LMAX Group have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership aimed at integrating Ripple’s USD-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, across LMAX’s global institutional trading infrastructure.
This agreement includes $150 million in financing from Ripple to support LMAX’s long-term cross-asset growth strategy.
The partnership is designed to embed RLUSD directly into institutional workflows, positioning the stablecoin as a settlement and collateral asset across multiple markets rather than a peripheral payment rail.
RLUSD Becomes a Core Institutional Collateral
Under the terms of the agreement, institutional clients of LMAX Group, including banks and brokers, will be able to utilize RLUSD as margin and collateral across various trading products such as spot crypto, perpetual futures, CFDs, and selected fiat currency pairs. This integration facilitates RLUSD's function as a common denominator for cross-asset exposure, thereby simplifying balance management across markets that are traditionally kept separate.
A significant feature of this integration is its continuous availability. In contrast to fiat currencies, which are subject to banking hours, RLUSD supports 24/7 on-chain settlement. This allows institutions to move collateral and settle positions without any interruption. The structure is intended to reduce friction between different asset classes and mitigate fragmentation during periods of market volatility.
Custody, Liquidity, and Prime Brokerage Access
RLUSD balances will be held through LMAX Custody, utilizing segregated wallet mechanisms. This setup is designed to ensure secure transferability between digital assets and traditional financial instruments. The custody framework is positioned to meet institutional compliance and operational requirements while preserving on-chain efficiency.
Liquidity is further enhanced through the integration of LMAX Digital with Ripple Prime, Ripple’s multi-asset prime brokerage service. This connection provides institutional participants with a regulated gateway to deep liquidity pools, consolidating execution, financing, and custody within a unified ecosystem.
Market Context and Strategic Backdrop
This announcement follows a strong performance year for LMAX Group, which reported $8.2 trillion in institutional exchange volumes in 2025. RLUSD, launched by Ripple in late 2024, has experienced rapid scaling and currently holds a market capitalization of approximately $1.4 billion, ranking it among the top 100 digital assets.
For Ripple, this partnership underscores a broader strategic objective to bridge traditional capital markets with on-chain financial infrastructure. By integrating RLUSD into an established institutional venue, the company is advancing the stablecoin's utility beyond payments and into core market functions, including collateral, settlement, and liquidity, areas where adoption decisions are typically structural rather than speculative.
This deal signifies a continuing convergence between digital assets and institutional trading, with stablecoins increasingly being positioned as foundational instruments rather than niche products.