Ripple has continued to revel in the glow of Judge Analisa Torres’ ruling in favor of the crypto company, with many use cases being touted for its native token XRP. The most recent use case to surface is a Spot XRP ETF, and Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart has quickly weighed in on the possibility of this happening.
How Possible Is A Spot XRP ETF?
Seyffart, during an appearance on Tony Edward’s Thinking Crypto Podcast, explained that XRP would need to be listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) before the SEC can approve a Spot XRP ETF.
This argument stems from the SEC’s requirement for a regulated market of significant size in the underlying asset. Relatively, exchanges looking to list a Spot Bitcoin ETF are, in hopes of gaining approval, relying on the fact that the CME Bitcoin futures, which happen to be a regulated market, provide significant size to provide necessary data and insights for any spot market.
So Seyffart also believes that any Spot XRP ETF application will also need to fulfill the requirement of the token having a significant market size that can be used to provide any data and insights needed to prevent fraud and market manipulation. To achieve this and easily get the SEC’s approval, listing XRP futures on a prominent derivative exchange like CME would be the way to go, in his opinion.
Despite his remarks, Seyffart isn’t so optimistic about a Spot XRP ETF launching anytime as, according to him, this isn’t something he sees “materializing in the foreseeable future.”
Token price continues to fall as euphoria wanes | Source: XRPUSDT on Tradingview.com
Little Or No Demand Is A Hindrance
Another notable highlight from Seyffart’s remarks was when he suggested that there was little or no demand for an XRP ETF, something which he believes is integral if we are to see any ETF application.
However, there is reason to believe this assumption may not be outrightly correct, as certain figures suggest an increasing demand for XRP, notably among institutional investors.
Last month, a report stated how XRP’s sales had jumped significantly this year, with over 2.22 billion XRP sold since the beginning of the year. Furthermore, according to a more recent report, the token recorded an institutional inflow of $0.5 million two weeks ago.
Ripple’s XRP Ledger is also going head to head with the foremost Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, as it has recorded an increase in daily transactions since the beginning of August. This record has seen it surpass market leader Ethereum in terms of daily transactions conducted on both networks.