Ripple nixed its plans to purchase crypto custodian Fortress Trust, but will remain an investor in the company, CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“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!” he wrote Thursday.
The planned acquisition was initially announced on Sept. 8.
A person with knowledge of the matter told CoinDesk that the Fortress deal would cost Ripple less than the $250 million it paid for Metaco, a Swiss crypto custodian, earlier this year.
In July, Fortress CEO Scott Purcell told Decrypt that Ripple, with which it had struck a relationship last year, was “by far the best partner for us and our customers.” However, Purcell told the outlet that disagreements within Ripple about the company’s direction caused it to pull away from the Fortress deal, and that he was aware of the issues before the back-out was announced publicly.
“They are really just focused on pure B2B and institutional global business. We were a way for them to diversify into B2B2C,” Purcell told Decrypt. “Many on their team were super excited about our tech and customer base but others pushed back to stay the current course.”
Purcell maintained that the companies will keep a strong relationship, and that no customers were affected in the merger cancelation.
