coindesk.com
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.
XRP has beaten a flat bitcoin (BTC) and a 2.7% gain in the broader crypto market tracked by the liquid CoinDesk 20 index (CD20) over the past 24 hours.