Before the potential approval of a spot ETF in the U.S., institutional interest in Ripple [XRP] surged to an all-time high.
According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the open interest in the XRP futures market reached a record nearly 12 million XRP, equivalent to a cumulative value of $9.02 billion.
According to exchange data, the record demand is -
an 'obvious sign of increasing market confidence.'
Overall demand for XRP futures has declined
Compared to other exchanges, CME ranks fourth, behind Bybit, Binance, and Bitget. However, in recent days, the overall demand for XRP futures has declined alongside its price.
In late July, the total open interest of Bitcoin futures peaked at approximately $10 billion, only to plummet to $7.3 billion on August 22. Since then, the cooling of the market has caused the value of this altcoin to drop from $3.6 billion to $2.8 billion, a decline of 23%.
The $2.8 level was defended during the pullback in the third quarter. Whether this level can be defended again remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, as a benchmark for the approval of a spot XRP ETF, market observers believe that the growth of CME futures is a vote of confidence and may bring positive results for the product.
XRP and LINK
However, on cryptocurrency Twitter, there has been a cold war between investors of XRP and Chainlink [LINK]. In fact, a key official from Chainlink claimed that Swift is collaborating with the XRP network, not XRP.
Interestingly, LINK has risen 75% in three weeks, outperforming XRP in the third quarter. This raises the question - can it surpass XRP in the short term?
However, this outstanding performance has only recently begun, as XRP has dominated for most of the past two years.
Whale activity has changed
Meanwhile, two major whale groups holding between 10 million and 1 billion tokens have reduced their sell-offs, a situation that emerged in July and early August.
The strong bids from these large participants may alleviate the pullback of XRP and trigger a reversal.
Overall, the boom in CME futures is beneficial for XRP, especially regarding the approval of a spot ETF. Additionally, the sell-off by whales has eased, and if they start buying strongly again, the market is likely to see a recovery.
