Joseph Thompson, senior vice president and head of treasury at the London Metal Exchange (LME), is leaving the exchange to join Ripple’s Trading and Markets team.

Thompson will officially depart the LME on August 31, 2026, before taking up his new role at Ripple, where he is expected to focus on expanding the company’s strategy around tokenized real-world assets.

The appointment brings experience from one of the world’s largest commodities marketplaces into Ripple’s growing institutional financial infrastructure business. 

Thompson’s background at the LME could be particularly relevant as Ripple seeks to connect blockchain-based financial products with established markets for commodities and other traditional assets.

The hire also comes as Ripple continues to broaden the scope of its institutional offering. Rather than positioning blockchain primarily as a payments technology, the company has increasingly targeted areas including custody, prime brokerage, trading, tokenization and market infrastructure.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is an important part of that broader strategy, providing Ripple with a blockchain infrastructure layer through which tokenized assets and financial applications can be issued and transferred.

Ripple expands institutional trading with Delta One

Ripple’s push into traditional financial markets is also extending through Ripple Prime, its institutional trading and prime brokerage platform.

The company has launched a new Delta One business that gives institutional clients access to total return swaps linked to U.S.-listed equities, equity indices and digital assets.

The service is aimed at hedge funds, asset managers and other professional financial institutions. Through the offering, clients can obtain exposure to the performance of underlying assets through derivatives rather than directly purchasing the securities themselves.

The launch expands Ripple Prime’s existing range of institutional services, which includes prime brokerage, clearing and financing across markets such as foreign exchange and derivatives. 

Ripple is positioning the platform around a single-counterparty model, allowing institutional clients to access multiple markets through the same infrastructure.

Delta One products are particularly relevant for professional investors because they can provide exposure to an asset's economic performance without requiring direct ownership. Total return swaps can also be incorporated into broader hedging, financing and portfolio strategies, depending on the needs and risk framework of the institution.

Ripple said Ripple Prime currently has more than $1 billion in regulatory net capital, providing a substantial balance sheet to support its institutional operations.

The company has also recently completed a $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes. The financing adds to Ripple’s resources as it continues developing its institutional financial-services business.

Ripple is building capabilities that extend beyond its established position in blockchain payments and digital assets, targeting financial institutions that operate across traditional and digital markets.

The combination of tokenized assets, derivatives and prime brokerage could ultimately allow Ripple to serve institutions across multiple stages of the investment lifecycle. 

Tokenization can provide the infrastructure for representing traditional assets on blockchain networks, while trading and prime brokerage services can provide the liquidity, financing and execution mechanisms needed to make those assets useful to professional investors.

For Ripple, the challenge will be integrating these businesses while navigating the regulatory and operational requirements associated with institutional finance. 

The company’s latest moves nevertheless suggest that its ambitions increasingly extend into the infrastructure connecting traditional markets with blockchain-based financial products.

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