XRP is down by nearly 5% over the last 24-hour period to seemingly move to retest the $3 mark in a drawdown that’s coming after it briefly saw its total market capitalization surpass that of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.
Since then, XRP’s market cap has plunged by around $20 billion as the wider cryptocurrency market endures a slight downturn. The native token of the XRP Ledger has plunged more than other major assets today after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) denied it was listing futures tied to the cryptocurrency.
The CME is often seen as a proxy for institutional activity in the cryptocurrency space and earlier screenshots of pages showing the potential launch of futures contracts for both XRP and SOL started circulating on social media. These sparked rumors the launch would come on Feb. 10.
The exchange has, however, revealed that these were “beta pages” from its website that were “released in error.” A spokesperson for the firm told CoinDesk that mock-ups were included in its testing environment, with no decisions having actually been made on these futures contracts.
As most cryptocurrencies, XRP saw its price surge late last year due to expectations of a more favorable regulatory environment under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. Anticipated policy changes, such as the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and the appointment of Paul Atkins as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), have significantly boosted investor confidence.
It’s worth noting that Atkins is considered a crypto-friendly figure to lead the regulatory agency, which has been involved in a legal battle with Ripple, a prominent player in the XRP ecosystem. This legal dispute centers around Ripple’s XRP sales.
Trump’s pro-crypto stance has led many to speculate that XRP could soon launch a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) that provides exposure to the cryptocurrency. Several companies have already filed for spot XRP ETFs, including Bitwise, Canary Capital, WisdomTree, and 21Shares. Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, has expressed the belief that such a fund is “inevitable.”
Featured image via Pexels.
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