The price of XRP is back in the spotlight after rising 4.11% in the past 24 hours, soaring to $2.37 with a daily trading volume of over $4 billion.
One of the triggers of this price surge is ProShares’ application for approval for three XRP futures ETFs, including long and short variants. The deadline is not far off, with all ETFs ready by July 14th.
At the same time, WisdomTree’s XRP Trust application is also awaiting regulatory review. Many market participants are beginning to predict that an XRP spot-based ETF will soon be approved.
Polymarket even notes an 84% probability of such a scenario. This is certainly no small news for the XRP community, as such an ETF could open access to institutional funds that have previously remained on the sidelines.
Ripple appoints BNY Mellon as the primary custodian of RLUSD
While the ETF news is garnering attention, news from the banking sector is quietly strengthening XRP’s foundation. According to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s recent interview with CNBC, Ripple has officially appointed BNY Mellon as the primary custodian of its stablecoin reserves, RLUSD.
At the same time, Ripple also applied for a banking license with the OCC. If approved, Ripple could gain direct access to the Federal Reserve. In the world of traditional finance, that’s like getting the keys to the main room.
Not enough? Ripple also benefited from a Bitwise report that named XRP as one of the best asset tokenization networks, on par with Ethereum and Solana. Even Uphold, a fairly large exchange, recently moved 214 million XRP internally without disrupting the market—a strong indication of institutional players streamlining their portfolios.
On the regulatory front, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse appeared live before the US Senate Banking Committee on July 9th. He emphasized the importance of distinguishing digital assets like XRP from securities.
This comes after Ripple settled its long-standing dispute with the SEC with a $125 million fine, but maintained XRP’s status as a non-security for retail transactions.