HSBC Researcher Sees Basis Trades Leading Ripple Prime's 24/7 Swaps

HSBC head of digital assets research Daragh Maher expects specialist traders to lead activity in Ripple Prime’s round-the-clock swaps, questioning whether the markets can support large institutional hedges.

Maher expects market makers, proprietary traders and hedge funds pursuing basis trades to account for much of the early activity. Basis trades involve related positions designed to capture differences in their prices. Institutions using the swaps for broader portfolio hedges would need to be able to enter and adjust large positions at workable prices.

The assessment adds a question about demand to the earlier coverage of Ripple Prime’s swap launch. Ripple announced the offering Oct. 15. The contracts reference more than 100 markets across equities, indexes, exchange-traded funds, metals, energy and foreign exchange. Clients including Virtu were trading them when the offering was announced.

Ripple Prime acts as principal in each swap. The contracts reference perpetual futures listed by Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid, and clients can trade and settle them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Clients can also cross-margin the swaps against other supported asset classes and use Ripple USD (RLUSD) as collateral where available.

The swaps give clients exposure to changes in traditional asset prices without requiring them to own the underlying assets. Their trading hours do not extend U.S. stock-exchange hours for the shares they reference. A client can therefore trade a swap while the exchange for an underlying stock is closed, though access outside exchange hours and the ability to adjust a large position are separate questions.

The offering is available out of Ripple Prime’s CIV BVI license. Ripple bought Hidden Road in October 2025 and renamed the brokerage Ripple Prime. The brokerage added support for Hyperliquid on Feb. 4, 2026, before introducing the traditional-market-linked swaps.