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CME Group recently became the largest venue for $XRP futures trading, as Open Interest on the regulated platform surged.
The $XRP futures market has seen a major change in recent weeks, as professional traders increase their activity on regulated platforms. CME Group has now overtaken Binance as the largest venue for $XRP futures open interest by notional value amid $XRP’s recent recovery.
CME’s open interest rose from 284 million $XRP on August 17 to 387 million $XRP on Aug. 31, representing an increase of about 36% in two weeks. Over the same period, $XRP climbed from around $0.99 to $1.38, giving the token a gain of nearly 40%.
CME Takes the Lead in $XRP Futures
CME moved ahead of Binance on Sept. 1 in terms of $XRP futures open interest by notional value.
Data from CoinGlass showed that CME held about 410,000 $XRP contracts worth approximately $530 million. Binance, meanwhile, had around 375,000 contracts valued at about $510 million.
CME now accounts for roughly 17% of total $XRP futures open interest, compared with about 10% in mid-August. That means its share increased by 7 percentage points in about two weeks.
The change is also important because it happened alongside a nearly 40% rise in $XRP’s price, which indicates stronger activity from professional market participants.
Overall $XRP Futures OI Moves Lower
The wider futures market shows a different trend. Total $XRP futures open interest across all exchanges dropped from about 2.77 billion $XRP to 2.34 billion $XRP between Aug. 17 and 31. This represents a decline of roughly 16%.
Platforms outside CME accounted for most of that drop. Their combined futures positions fell by approximately 533 million $XRP, representing a 21% decline over the same period. CME, however, continued to add positions while the rest of the market reduced exposure.
This created an unusual setup. $XRP gained nearly 40% while total futures open interest fell by 16%. Strong price rallies often come with rising open interest as traders add leveraged positions. In this case, however, the market reduced leveraged exposure while CME’s share continued to grow.
This suggests that the recent rally may not have depended heavily on speculative leverage from offshore exchanges. Instead, stronger spot demand and increased activity from professional traders may have played a larger role.
ETF Inflows Add to Institutional Interest
Recent $XRP ETF flows also support the growing institutional interest in the asset. U.S. spot $XRP ETFs recorded $110.49 million in net inflows during the week ending Aug. 28. This marked their strongest weekly inflow of 2026 and pushed cumulative net inflows to approximately $1.66 billion.
Goldman Sachs also returned to the $XRP ETF market during the second quarter. Its Q2 13F filings showed approximately $87.4 million in exposure across five spot $XRP ETFs, making Goldman the largest disclosed holder among the institutions mentioned. Jane Street and Millennium Management followed.
Goldman had completely exited its $XRP ETF positions in the previous quarter before rebuilding exposure across five funds in Q2. Its return, combined with the rise in CME futures activity, confirms that regulated investment products are becoming an increasingly important part of $XRP’s market.
Hedge Funds Short While Dealers Add Longs
Meanwhile, CFTC data through Aug. 25 shows that not every professional group has taken a bullish position. Leveraged funds held 892 long contracts and 3,206 short contracts, leaving them with a net short position equivalent to approximately 116 million $XRP.
This represented an increase from the roughly 57 million $XRP net short position recorded the previous week. However, the figure does not necessarily mean that hedge funds are simply betting against $XRP.
Dealers and asset managers moved in the opposite direction. Specifically, dealers increased their net-long exposure by nearly 60 million $XRP, while asset managers added about 28 million $XRP in long exposure.