Ripple has recruited a senior treasury executive from the London Metal Exchange (LME) as the company deepens its expansion into institutional trading, tokenization and corporate finance.

Joseph Thompson, senior vice president and head of treasury at the LME, will leave the exchange on Aug. 31 to join Ripple's Trading and Markets team. According to the original hire report, his role is expected to include work related to tokenized real-world assets.

The appointment brings experience from one of the world's largest commodities exchanges — the LME serves as the global center for industrial metals trading, where clearing, collateral and margin management are core daily functions — into a business that is increasingly focused on liquidity, collateral and blockchain-based capital markets. That background is directly relevant to the tokenized-collateral use cases Ripple has been building toward, where traditional treasury processes must interact with on-chain assets.

Ripple Builds Out Institutional Finance

The hire follows Ripple's broader push into corporate treasury and institutional infrastructure. In 2025, Ripple acquired GTreasury for $1 billion, gaining a long-established treasury management platform. That business has since been integrated into Ripple Treasury, which combines traditional cash management with digital-asset capabilities.

Ripple has also launched native digital-asset functionality across its Treasury platform.

The company has increasingly positioned its products alongside existing financial infrastructure rather than targeting only crypto-native users, as seen in Coinpaper's coverage of Ripple's SWIFT tools. Recruiting from established exchanges and financial institutions, rather than primarily from crypto firms, is consistent with that positioning: corporate treasurers and institutional clients typically require counterparties whose teams understand conventional market plumbing, regulation and risk management.

Tokenization Becomes a Bigger Focus

Ripple has also expanded its exposure to tokenized assets. Recent investments in ZILO and Licuido were aimed at improving issuance, transfer agency and collateral infrastructure for institutional markets.

The XRP Ledger is also gaining more tokenized products. Aviva Investors recently launched a tokenized liquidity fund on XRPL, extending the network's real-world asset (RWA) footprint.

Ripple and Boston Consulting Group have estimated that tokenized assets could approach $19 trillion by 2033, although adoption will depend heavily on regulation and institutional demand.

The new hire does not mean the LME itself is adopting Ripple technology. Rather, it signals that Ripple is recruiting more expertise from traditional market infrastructure as it seeks to expand beyond payments and further into institutional finance. A question worth watching going forward is whether Ripple converts this talent acquisition into live tokenized-collateral or treasury products with named institutional clients, which would mark a concrete step beyond its payments heritage.

For background on the relationship between Ripple, XRP and the XRP Ledger, Coinpaper's evergreen XRP guide provides a concise overview.