Marc Asch, the founder of Hidden Road and head of Ripple Prime, is stepping down at the end of the year. A Ripple spokesperson told CoinDesk that Noel Kimmel, currently SVP at Ripple Prime, will lead the business and team inside Ripple. The prime brokerage was a $1.25 billion acquisition. A founder exit one year later is a company story worth taking at face value, not inflating into a crisis.
XRP market moves
XRP opened November 10 (00:00 UTC) at about $1.10, market cap near $69.7B, with about $2.36B in 24-hour volume (CoinGecko). The session ranged from about $1.03 to $1.11, with a late rebound toward $1.06–$1.07. That is another down day in a two-week slide, and it started before the CoinDesk article posted at 7:38 AM ET.
What Ripple said
"We're extremely grateful to Marc for everything he did as founder of Hidden Road, now Ripple Prime," the spokesperson said in an email to CoinDesk. "As he moves on at the end of the year to pursue new opportunities, Noel Kimmel, SVP, Ripple Prime is stepping up to lead the business and team within Ripple."
That is the entire official explanation: year-end departure, new opportunities, an internal successor. There is no disclosed disagreement, no earnings figure attached, and no change to the product set in the announcement.
Ripple announced the Hidden Road deal in April 2025, completed it and rebranded the firm Ripple Prime that October. Asch had founded Hidden Road in 2018 after working at SAC Capital and Point72. Ripple Prime offers institutional prime brokerage, clearing and financing across digital assets and traditional markets, including FX, derivatives and fixed income. Ripple has said RLUSD is used as collateral for some prime-brokerage products.
The acquisition sits in a larger 2025 shopping list: GTreasury for $1 billion and Rail for $200 million, alongside Hidden Road's $1.25 billion. Those deals are how Ripple built the corporate-treasury and institutional-trading stack it has been pitching all year. The person who built the prime-broker piece is leaving. The stack remains.
What this is not
It is not a shutdown of Ripple Prime. It is not, on today's evidence, a regulatory action. It is not a statement about XRP. Leadership changes at a subsidiary can be ordinary, and we do not have facts that say otherwise. Treat "the acquisition is unwinding" posts as speculation.
Other verified items today
Separately, XRPL developers and the Foundation have been discussing a path to quantum-resistant accounts, with Ripple describing a readiness goal around 2028. That is a roadmap conversation, not a Mainnet feature, and it was not tied to the Prime announcement. LendingProtocol stood at 22 of 35 validators in the evening (threshold 28), still short of a majority.
Question everything
A founder leaving "to pursue new opportunities" is a standard phrase. It can be amicable and still leave a hole in client relationships. Watch whether Ripple names a public replacement timeline beyond "end of the year," and whether any large Prime clients comment. Until then, do not write a hidden story into a two-paragraph statement.
What people are talking about
The departure is being read in some feeds as a crack in Ripple's institutional push. In others it barely registered next to the $1.05 handle. Neither reading is evidence. The CoinDesk quote is the evidence.
On-chain data
XRP price: about $1.10 at 00:00 UTC; session low about $1.03 (CoinGecko)
Market cap: about $69.7B at the daily snapshot (CoinGecko)
24h volume: about $2.36B (CoinGecko)
Hidden Road / Ripple Prime acquisition: $1.25B, announced April 2025, completed October 2025
LendingProtocol: 22/35 yes votes, not enabled (XRPSCAN, evening)
Flows and macro
The tape remains weak across majors. We did not have a complete same-day XRP ETF print at deadline. This looks like a continuation of last week's risk-off stretch, not a Prime-headline reaction.
What to watch next
Asch's actual end-of-year departure, and any later comment from him or from Ripple
Whether Kimmel is given a public mandate that changes Prime's product mix, especially RLUSD collateral
ETF flows now that the prior week printed zeros
LendingProtocol votes, still six short of the threshold if 22 holds
The XRPTRACER take
Ripple paid $1.25 billion for a prime broker and is now handing that franchise to an internal SVP. That is a succession event to log, not a thesis about XRP. The token's slide toward $1.05 has a market explanation that predates this interview. We've added the leadership change to the Catalyst Tracker. Price and the institutional stack sit on the Dashboard.
Sources: CoinDesk: Marc Asch to step down, Noel Kimmel named successor · Ripple: Hidden Road acquisition · CoinGecko XRP
Price is CoinGecko's daily snapshot at 00:00 UTC on November 10, 2026, with the session range from the same day's CoinGecko chart. Leadership details from CoinDesk, Nov 10, 7:38 AM ET, citing a Ripple spokesperson.
Not investment advice. See our Disclaimer.
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