XRP Sees Record Futures Bets Amid Price Surge Above $1.20

Regulatory
clarity
and
upcoming
technical
changes
are
spurring
growth
in
XRP-tracked
futures,
with
open
interest
zooming
to
record
highs
on
Saturday
as
prices
spiked
more
than
20%
over
24
hours.

XRP
and
U.S.
dollar-denominated
open
interest
are
at
record
levels
as
of
Sunday,
with
over
2
billion
tokens
(worth
nearly
$2
billion
at
current
prices)
in
futures
positions
betting
on
further
market
volatility.

Long/short
data
shows
that
traders
are
slightly
biased
toward
shorts,
with
51%
in
bets
against
further
price
increases.
(While
the
ratio
should
theoretically
remain
50:50
at
all
times
as
there
is
always
a
short
trade
for
each
long
trade,
the
bias
gives
an
insight
into
how
savvy
traders
are
positioning
over
a
very
short-term
period,
such
as
24
hours.)

Open
Interest
(OI)
refers
to
the
total
number
of
outstanding
derivative
contracts
not
settled
for
an
asset.

An
increase
in
both
OI
and
prices
typically
indicates
that
new
money
is
entering
the
market
—
indicative
of
a
bullish
trend.
On
the
other
hand,
if
the
price
rises
but
OI
falls,
the
rally
might
be
driven
by
short
covering
rather
than
new
buying,
potentially
signaling
a
weaker
trend.

XRP
prices
zoomed
above
$1.20
in
U.S.
morning
hours
Saturday,
taking
weekly
gains
to
over
87%,
which
set
a
three-year
price
high
for
the
token.

Gains
in
XRP
started
late
Thursday
as
18
U.S.
states
filed
to
sue
the
SEC
and
commissioners,
including
chairman
Gary
Gensler,
accusing
them
of
unconstitutional
overreach
of
the
crypto
industry.

The
speculative
optimism
among
traders
is
that
a
crypto-friendly
Trump
administration
could
benefit
tokens
linked
to
U.S.-based
companies,
such
as
Ripple
Labs
(related
to
XRP)
and
Uniswap
(UNI),
as
the
firms
are
more
involved
in
boosting
value
for
token
holders
as
the
regulatory
headwinds
appear
to
have
cleared.

In
addition,
a
key
fundamental
development
that
may
boost
future
gains
in
XRP
is
the
upcoming
RLUSD
stablecoin
by
Ripple
Labs,
a
company
closely
related
to
the
issuance
of
XRP.

Ripple
plans
to
use
RLUSD
in
its
cross-border
payments
product,
providing
liquidity,
facilitating
faster
and
cheaper
transactions,
and
potentially
integrating
with
various
decentralized
finance
(DeFi)
protocols
across
multiple
blockchains,
as
previously
reported.