- Ripple has pulled the plug on its Fortress Trust acquisition deal.
- Ripple’s CEO made the announcement personally.
- The company says it will still maintain ties with Fortress Trust.
Blockchain firm Ripple has announced its plan to back out from a deal that would have seen the financial technology firm augment its pool of licenses in the U.S.
On September 28, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse posted an update on Twitter (X), stating that the company will not be moving forward with an outright acquisition of Fortress Trust, a Nevada-based chartered trust company and crypto custodian.
Hopes of Working Together in the Future
While Garlinghouse didn’t mention a specific reason as to why Ripple decided to make a U-turn on the deal 20 days after making it public, he affirmed that his company would remain an investor in Fortress.
Sponsored
Garlinghouse lauded Fortress as a forward-thinking company that aims to solve real customer problems, stating that he hoped the technology firm would work again with Ripple.
“The Fortress team is incredibly talented and has built products solving real customer problems. While this outcome is different from what was originally planned, we’ll continue to support them and hope to work together in the future!” Garlinghouse said.
Although Ripple’s ties with Fortress date back to 2022, Ripple announced the acquisition deal of Fortress on September 8, following a multimillion-dollar security breach on Fortress’s third-party analytics vendor.
A Rushed Deal?
Two days later, after Ripple made its acquisition intention public, it emerged that the Fortress team had gotten in touch with other potential buyers, including BitGo, but wanted to conduct the sale without acknowledging the security breach.
On September 8, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe expressed his disappointment over what he termed the “Fortress episode,” noting that his company had advised Fortress to come clean about the security incident even before Ripple came into the picture. Still, Fortress chose to sell and delegate the responsibility of making its clients whole to Ripple.
From the look of things, the deal was rushed to mitigate the publicity crisis that would follow the breach.
Stay updated on the latest developments within the Ripple team:
Ripple Welcomes White House Veteran for Policy Leadership
Read to learn more about the ongoing Ripple-SEC dispute:
Ripple’s CLO Publicly Accuses SEC Chair of Fraud and Manipulation
