Ripple Prime launches perpetual contract trading services for traditional assets aimed at institutional clients

According to Bloomberg, Ripple's main brokerage division, Ripple Prime, is launching perpetual contracts for real-world assets (RWA) aimed at institutional clients, covering over 100 reference markets including stocks, indices, ETFs, and commodities. This product is offered through Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid, continuing Ripple Prime's previous strategy of opening up cryptocurrency perpetual contract trading to clients.

This arrangement supports cross-position margin sharing. Michael Higgins, CEO of Ripple Prime International, stated that this move helps institutions improve capital efficiency and position management. Clients can pair perpetual contracts with underlying assets for basis trading or use the contracts for directional trading to gain exposure to relevant assets during traditional market closures and on weekends.

In the past year, the open interest of RWA perpetual contracts on several major trading platforms has increased from nearly zero to $9 billion. Higgins also mentioned that traditional hedge funds are "very close" to directly participating in the tokenized RWA market, with the key being the establishment of infrastructure that meets their counterparty and anti-money laundering requirements.