Ripple's playbook for taking over financial infrastructure just got a powerful confirmation. SBI Group president Yoshitaka Kitao has publicly backed the company's acquisition strategy, backing the claim that Ripple is no longer just building products — it is creating a full-stack ecosystem, with XRP and RLUSD integrated into every layer.
Kitao is not just an average observer. He was an early investor in Ripple in Asia, and even sat on its board. SBI Group is not just invested in Ripple — it actively runs XRP validator nodes, manages XRP-focused financial products and integrates the coin into its payment rails through SBI Remit and MoneyTap.
Now, Kitao is siding with Ripple as they spend $2.45 billion to get the pieces needed to run a financial platform all in one place. The parts include prime brokerage firm Hidden Road, treasury software provider GTreasury, stablecoin payment network Rail and wallet custody company Palisade.
All of these units together make a system that insiders call "Ripple 1." Basically, it is like Amazon's platform model but designed for institutional finance.
"Amazon of financial world"
XRP and Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD are key here. RLUSD is already being used as collateral in prime brokerage trades, while XRP moves through payment, custody and treasury modules across the platform.
There has also been some buzz about Ripple's use of Amazon's Bedrock AI internally, but as it seems, it is just being used for log analytics for now. They are not making any changes to the XRPL itself. Analysts quickly said the rumors about AWS integrations at the protocol level were false.
With SBI's president fully backing the strategy, the story gets more solid: Ripple is not trying to be relevant. It is like building a financial operating system, and one of Japan's most powerful institutions is right in the mix.
Gamza Khanzadaev
Alex Dovbnya
Tomiwabold Olajide
Godfrey Benjamin
Yuri Molchan