Ripple Buys Crypto Custody Firm Metaco for $250 Million and Expands to Tokenization

Enterprise crypto company Ripple has acquired Swiss digital asset custody provider Metaco for $250 million.

The deal, announced Wednesday (May 17), will help Ripple tap into an institutional crypto custody market that will grow to $10 trillion by 2030. It’s also happening as Ripple contends with a regulatory lawsuit and as it and other crypto firms weigh their future in the U.S.

“Ripple and Metaco share strong crypto DNA, top-tier institutional customers, and a long history of working with regulated entities to create secure enterprise-grade solutions,” the company said in a news release.

“With this acquisition, Ripple will expand its enterprise offerings, providing customers with the technology to custody, issue, and settle any type of tokenized asset.”

For its part, Metaco — which will continue to operate as its own brand, led by founder and CEO Adrien Treccani — gains access to Ripple’s base of hundreds of clients and greater capital and resources, the release said.

Founded in 2015, the company’s Harmonize offering is used by banks, companies and financial institutions needing digital asset custody and tokenization infrastructure.

“Custody is a key facet of the infrastructure required for enterprise crypto services,” said Ripple President Monica Long. “Adding these capabilities to Ripple’s already growing product solutions means we can continue to support customers as they look to utilize crypto and blockchain for real-world use cases across all phases of adoption.”

Earlier this month, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse warned that other countries were passing the U.S. in terms of policies that promote crypto innovation.

“Blockchain technologies are being invested and pursued and the entrepreneurship outside the United States,” Garlinghouse told CNBC during the Dubai FinTech Summit.

“One of the first pieces of advice I give entrepreneurs … I’ll say, ‘If I were you, I would not start in the United States,’ and I think there’s a lot of U.S.-based companies and even U.S. public companies that would agree with that.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke last week with Brendan Berry, Ripple’s head of payments products, about finding a silver lining in a period of “healthy skepticism” about the crypto sector.

“This is the time to roll up your sleeves and create with a focus on driving real utility in contrast to many of the ‘technology in search of a problem’ approaches that we saw during the winter pullback,” Berry said.