According to Cointelegraph, Ripple has decided to cancel its acquisition of Fortress Trust, just 20 days after announcing the deal. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the decision on X (formerly Twitter) on September 28, stating that the company will not move forward with an outright acquisition, but will remain a shareholder in Fortress Trust's parent company, Fortress Blockchain Technologies.

Ripple first announced the acquisition on September 8, with plans to acquire other companies in the Fortress group, including an affiliated firm, FortressPay. However, a few days later, Fortress Trust revealed that the acquisition was rushed due to a security incident involving a third-party analytics vendor. The company lost $12 million to $15 million in the attack, with a majority of the funds being Bitcoin (BTC), along with small amounts of USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT). Ripple, an investor in Fortress since its seed round in 2022, had to step in to make customers whole.

Fortress CEO Scott Purcell told Cointelegraph that the cancellation of the merger is not a big deal and is unrelated to the security incident. He added that Ripple remains an investor in Fortress and a great partner. Ripple declined to comment further on the matter beyond its CEO's X post. The deal's failure could benefit other companies linked to Fortress, such as Swan Bitcoin, which is working on a joint venture with BitGo to create a Bitcoin-only trust company in the U.S., pending regulatory approval. Fortress Trust provides custody of records for Swan, and with the deal's collapse, Swan will no longer be involved in Ripple's business in the country.