Mastercard Deepens Ties to Ripple Ahead of Hackathon

Ripple's ties to Mastercard have deepened ahead of the XRP Ledger Hackathon on October 24-25, as the payments giant has been named a sponsor by the XRP Ledger Foundation. This comes after Mastercard enlisted Ripple in its broader blockchain-payments partnership program alongside Binance, PayPal, and others in March. The XRP Ledger Foundation sees this involvement as 'thrilled' news, calling the XRP network 'ideally suited for payment use cases.'

The announcement also coincides with a technical adjustment to 21Shares' XRP ETF pricing, which is seeing renewed momentum after a rough patch. Trading volume has picked up alongside this move, consistent with its August 2026 ETF activity, which saw $56.86 million in net inflows.

XRP's intraday range has spanned $1.38 to $1.46, with the current print at the $1.45 area sitting closer to the top of that band. Trading volume has picked up alongside the move, consistent with its August 2026 ETF activity, which saw $56.86 million in net inflows.

A clean break above $1.46 opens room toward $1.60-plus for XRP, especially if the CLARITY Act clears its September 15 cloture vote and formalizes XRP's status as a CFTC-regulated commodity.