Marc Asch will leave his post as head of Ripple Prime at the end of 2026, roughly a year after the crypto company completed its $1.25 billion purchase of the prime brokerage he founded, Ripple said.
A Ripple spokesperson said Noel Kimmel, a senior vice president at Ripple Prime, will move up to run the business. Asch is departing to pursue new opportunities, according to the spokesperson, who added: "We're extremely grateful to Marc for everything he did as founder of Hidden Road, now Ripple Prime."
Asch set up Hidden Road in 2018 after earlier stints at Steve Cohen's hedge fund firms SAC Capital and Point72 Asset Management. Ripple, based in California and best known for its cross-border payments network tied to XRP, announced the Hidden Road deal in April 2025 and closed it that October, rebranding the unit as Ripple Prime. Hidden Road Partners CIV US LLC had said in April 2025 that it won approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to operate as a broker-dealer.
The unit gives institutional clients prime brokerage, clearing and financing across digital assets as well as traditional markets such as foreign exchange, derivatives and fixed income. Some of its products accept RLUSD, Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin, as collateral.
Asch's exit comes as Ripple pushes beyond its payments roots into a broader set of institutional services. The company's recent deal spree is summarized below.
Note: Deal values and closing years as disclosed by Ripple.
Crypto prime brokerages generally supply institutional investors with liquidity, custody, leverage and risk management for digital-asset trading. An industry analyst said the segment is maturing as more traditional financial institutions explore digital assets, a shift that has drawn established brokers into competition with crypto-native platforms.
The leadership change puts a Ripple insider in charge of an operation that still depends on continuity with the institutional clients Hidden Road brought over. Kimmel's promotion suggests Ripple intends to keep the brokerage's trading relationships intact while folding it deeper into the parent company's stablecoin and treasury offerings. For clients, the immediate question is whether the unit's clearing and financing terms change under new leadership; Ripple gave no indication of a shift in strategy.
