The News: Ripple, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, has announced that it has acquired Metaco, a leading provider of digital asset custody solutions. See more on the announcement on the Ripple website.
Ripple Acquires Metaco to Expand Crypto Custody Services
Analyst Take: Despite the regulatory sentiment toward crypto, especially by the SEC in the U.S., the market trends for digital assets are showing positive signs of growth and maturity. Financial institutions are increasingly adopting digital assets, indicating the industry’s legitimacy as an asset class. Institutional investors, including pension funds and hedge funds, are also showing interest in digital assets, signaling mainstream acceptance. Governments worldwide are implementing regulations to protect investors and ensure legitimate use of the crypto industry, although finding a balance between regulation and innovation is crucial. Developers are creating new use cases for digital assets, such as payments, remittances, and decentralized finance. Mass adoption is still a work in progress, but addressing regulatory concerns will play a key role in achieving widespread adoption.
Who are the players?
Ripple: Ripple is a global payments company founded in 2012. The company’s XRP cryptocurrency is designed to be a fast, cheap, and efficient way to send money internationally. Ripple has been working to expand its crypto custody services in recent years. In 2021, the company acquired BitGo, a leading provider of digital asset custody solutions.
Metaco: Metaco is a Swiss-based company founded in 2015, provides a range of custody solutions for digital assets including cold storage, hot wallets and staking services. Metaco’s customers include some of the largest banks and financial institutions in the world.
The acquisition of Metaco by Ripple will help the company expand its crypto custody services and meet growing demand for secure ways to store and manage digital assets. The move is a significant one for Ripple — it makes the company one of the largest providers of crypto custody solutions in the world. The acquisition will help it meet growing demand for secure and compliant ways to store and manage digital assets.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed in a statement that the acquisition of Metaco represents a significant milestone in the company’s efforts to construct the Internet of Value. He emphasized the importance of Metaco’s extensive expertise and successful track record in digital asset custody, highlighting its invaluable role in expanding Ripple’s offerings and addressing the increasing demand for secure and compliant storage and management of digital assets. Metaco CEO Adrien Treccani regarded the acquisition by Ripple as an excellent opportunity to accelerate Metaco’s growth and unlock its full potential. Recognizing Ripple as the prominent leader in the digital asset space, he conveyed excitement about the collaboration and the joint endeavor to shape the future of finance.
Who is Metaco?
Metaco is a company that provides digital asset custody solutions to financial institutions, and corporations. The company’s platform, Harmonize, enables clients to store, manage, and transact digital assets securely. Some of Metaco’s customers include some of the largest banks and financial institutions in the world.
According to the company, Metaco’s platform is designed to be highly secure, compliant, scalable, and flexible. It uses a variety of security measures to protect digital assets, including cold storage and hardware security modules. Metaco’s platform is also designed to be compliant with a variety of regulations including the Travel Rule and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. In addition, its platform is scalable and flexible – meaning it can be used to store and manage a large number of digital assets and can be customized to meet the specific needs of financial institutions and corporations.
Metaco is a partner for financial institutions and corporations that are looking to securely store, manage, and transact digital assets. The company’s platform offers a viable option for those institutions looking for a secure, compliant, scalable, and flexible solution that can help them meet the challenges of the digital asset economy.
Benefits of the Acquisition
The acquisition of Metaco by Ripple is expected to provide a number of benefits for both companies. For Ripple, the acquisition will allow the company to expand its crypto custody services and meet the growing demand for secure and compliant ways to store and manage digital assets. Ripple’s expertise and experience in crypto custody will be invaluable to Metaco as it continues to grow its business.
For Metaco, the acquisition by Ripple will provide the company with access to Ripple’s network of customers and partners. This will help Metaco to expand its reach and grow its business. In addition, the acquisition will provide Metaco with access to Ripple’s resources and expertise. This will help Metaco to develop new products and services and improve its existing offerings.
Looking Ahead
Ripple’s acquisition of Metaco marks a significant and positive step forward for the crypto industry. By expanding its crypto custody services, Ripple aims to enhance accessibility and security for businesses and individuals, thereby driving the adoption of digital assets and facilitating the industry’s growth. This acquisition also reflects Ripple’s confidence in the future of the crypto industry, as the decision to acquire a leading provider of digital asset custody solutions demonstrates its belief in the industry’s longevity. Overall, this move by Ripple and the integration of Metaco represent a major development that holds great potential for the crypto industry.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
