XRP ETF Could Soon Be a Reality, Says Ripple President

TL;DR

• Ripple President Monica Long is optimistic that an XRP ETF could be next after Bitcoin and Ether ETFs were approved last year.

• XRP is up nearly 2% in the last 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market.

XRP ETF Could be Approved Soon

Ripple President Monica Long told Bloomberg in an interview earlier this week that an XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) could soon become a reality as favorable U.S. crypto regulations bear well for local businesses.

She made this comment while discussing the recent traction of RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin. Long stated that,

“I think we will see one very soon. I think that we will see more crypto spot ETFs this year coming out of the US, and I think XRP is likely to be next in line after bitcoin and ether. We think, especially with the administration change, the approvals of those filings will accelerate.” 

According to Long, Ripple’s new RLUSD stablecoin will be available on more exchanges as soon as possible, and expects the stablecoin to become a major part of Ripple’s payments and money business. 

Ripple launched its RLUSD stablecoin on the Ethereum and XRP ledgers about a month ago. With a $72 million market capitalization, it could take some time before it competes with industry giants USDT and USDC. 

RLUSD adopted some of Chainlink's services to boost utility across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. 

Long’s comment comes after asset management firm Bitwise submitted an S-1 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in October regarding an exchange-traded fund tied to XRP. 

Since then, Canary Capital, WisdomTree, and 21Shares have separately filed for offering XRP ETFs. However, the regulator has yet to decide on the outcome.  

XRP is the best performer among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, up nearly 2% in the last 24 hours. At press time, XRP is trading at $2.31, with a market cap of over $133 billion.