CME Surpasses Binance as Top Venue for XRP Futures Open Interest

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has overtaken Binance to become the largest venue for XRP futures by notional open interest, according to data from CoinGlass.

This shift occurred on September 1 as XRP prices rebounded. CME's XRP futures open interest reached approximately 410,000 contracts, worth around $530 million, while Binance held about 375,000 contracts, valued at roughly $510 million.

The increase in CME's open interest was rapid, rising by 36% from August 17 to August 31. In contrast, overall XRP futures market open interest across all exchanges declined by around 16%, from approximately 2.77 billion XRP on August 17 to about 2.34 billion XRP on August 31.

This trend suggests that the recent rally in XRP prices may not have relied heavily on speculative leverage at overseas exchanges, but rather on spot demand and professional investor activity. The flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also point in this direction, with XRP spot ETFs recording net inflows of $110.49 million in the week ended August 28.

Notably, Goldman Sachs re-entered the XRP spot ETF market in the second quarter and held exposure of around $87.4 million across five XRP spot ETFs. However, leveraged funds remained net short by approximately 116 million XRP as of August 25, although this figure alone does not necessarily indicate that hedge funds were betting on an XRP decline.