What happened
Mike Higgins, Chief Executive of Ripple Prime, told U. Today in remarks published Thursday that the brokerage is actively scaling into Bitcoin liquidity, with a focus on options. Higgins described the strategy as building on two pillars: RLUSD, Ripple's dollar stablecoin, as the settlement and margin asset, and the Bullish exchange's order books, which Ripple inherited through the Bullish acquisition that closed earlier in this cycle.
The CEO positioned the move as the natural next step for a desk that began life servicing XRP-denominated institutional flow but now wants to compete for Bitcoin mandates. U. Today first reported the comments.
No formal press release accompanied the interview at the time of capture.
Why it matters
Ripple has spent years pitching itself as XRP-first infrastructure. Higgins is publicly retiring that framing for the prime-brokerage arm. Bitcoin options are where the institutional money sits.
CME open interest on BTC options has run in the tens of billions of dollars through 2025 and into 2026, and Deribit still anchors the offshore book. A Ripple-branded desk routing institutional Bitcoin flow through RLUSD margin and Bullish liquidity is a direct shot at Galaxy, Cumberland DRW, and FalconX for prime-broker share. It also gives RLUSD a use case that doesn't depend on XRP Ledger adoption, which matters for a stablecoin still building circulating supply against USDC and USDT.
The headline reads bullish for Ripple. The proof will be in disclosed counterparties and RLUSD float.
