The introduction of XRP futures on the CME has sparked strong institutional engagement, reigniting expectations for a U.S.-based spot XRP ETF as the cryptocurrency gains momentum in regulated trading venues.
On their debut day, CME’s XRP futures recorded a notional trading volume exceeding $19 million, followed by an additional $10 million on the subsequent trading day.
The first trade, a block transaction cleared by Hidden Road on May 18, marked the beginning of trading for two types of contracts: the standard contract covering 50,000 XRP and the micro contract representing 2,500 XRP. Both are cash-settled and benchmarked against the CME CF XRP-Dollar Reference Rate, calculated daily at 15:00 UTC.
Standard contracts saw trading volumes of 7.5 million XRP on Monday and 2.95 million XRP on Tuesday, while micro contracts traded 517,000 XRP and 1.2 million XRP on the respective days.
Market watchers view this surge in regulated futures trading as a significant step forward in the path toward SEC approval of a spot XRP ETF.
“Spot XRP ETFs are coming sooner rather than later,” tweeted Nate Geraci, President of the ETF Store.
Despite the futures market momentum, XRP’s spot price held steady near $2.38, with a modest 0.42% increase over 24 hours.
