Ripple Wins Preliminary MiCA Approval as XRP ETFs Top $200M, Token Holds Near $1.10

XRP News

Sentiment toward XRP in the derivatives market is splitting sharply from one venue to the next. Open-interest data puts the four-hour long-to-short ratio at 1.27x, the highest reading among major altcoins. Whale positioning sits in the “extreme bearish” zone on Binance and Bybit, yet flashes “extreme bullish” on OKX — making XRP the asset where institutional money is most visibly at odds with itself. Aggregate crypto derivatives open interest stands at $106.2 billion, down 0.48% on the day, while liquidations over the same window jumped 72% to $553 million. The price slipped roughly 1.8% in 24 hours, even as long and short bets piled up side by side beneath the surface.

On-chain data tells a more constructive story, with large holders leaning into the dip. Whales have net-accumulated about 1.53 billion XRP over the past six months and shifted a sizeable share of it off exchanges, trimming the circulating supply in the process. That tightening tends to put a floor under price even during drawdowns. Derivatives open interest has climbed back to roughly 2.35 billion XRP — its highest level since the sharp selloff last October — while funding rates held marginally positive, a sign that long positions are building without runaway speculation. On June 17, XRP spot ETFs logged about $5.3 million in net inflows.

On the regulatory front, Ripple secured preliminary approval from Luxembourg’s financial regulator (CSSF) for a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) license under the EU’s MiCA framework, opening a path into 30 countries across the European Economic Area. Yet XRP fell about 3% immediately after the news, breaking the usual “regulatory win equals price pop” pattern. The reason: the announcement centered on the RLUSD stablecoin and Ripple’s payments infrastructure rather than XRP itself. By pairing its existing electronic money institution (EMI) license with the new CASP, Ripple aims to build $100 billion in payment rails across more than 60 markets — but XRP remains confined to a network-liquidity role, leaving it a step removed from direct demand creation.

Within the ecosystem, IoTrust — the company behind the D’CENT cold wallet — launched the second project under its “XRP Alliance.” D’CENT has completed a bridge-protocol integration with cross-chain firm Squid, letting users instantly swap XRP into more than 100 mainnet assets across Ethereum, Solana and others while keeping the security of a cold wallet intact. The move also clears a route to connect Ripple’s dollar-pegged RLUSD with external DeFi ecosystems. With the earlier first “Flare Campaign” hitting its 8.5 million XRP deposit cap ahead of schedule, attention now turns to whether this reward event — running for two weeks from June 23 — draws similar demand.

Trading activity has stayed firm despite the soft price. Daily volume held near $1.5 billion, and cumulative seven-day volume reached roughly $17 billion. Given the price dropped more than 11% over that same stretch, most read the pattern as repositioning and a wait-and-see stance rather than fading interest. Separately, Ripple took a strategic stake in the Series E round of African payments firm Flutterwave (valued at $3.2 billion), pursuing a dual track that places RLUSD into sub-Saharan remittance corridors. Market participants see XRP ETF inflows as the potential trigger for a break above $1.25.

The macro backdrop is still weighing on the downside. XRP has tumbled about 10% over seven days, narrowing the gap to the psychological $1 support, and one prediction market priced the odds of a green daily close at just 32.5%. The key regulatory variable is the U.S. market-structure bill known as the CLARITY Act, judged to have advanced further through the legislative process than any prior crypto bill. If XRP is classified as a digital commodity rather than a security, expectations are that institutional inflows would benefit. ETF flows, however, remain cold: through June 18, roughly $2.5 billion exited Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, while XRP ETF net inflows totaled only about $24 million.

(as of 05:21 UTC) COINOTAG’s proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine (as of 05:20 UTC) rates the $1.1120 resistance at 81/100 (strong), citing a confluence of the prior close, R1 and fib 0.114. On the downside, $1.0975 support scores 64/100 (HVN4, S1, MACD cross) and $1.0501 holds at 70/100 (fib 0.000, lower Donchian, S3). RSI sits at 36.69, near oversold, and MACD has flipped to a buy signal, though the broader trend remains down. Derivatives positioning shows a long-to-short account ratio of 3.03 (75.2% long) with funding at -0.0008%, a somewhat crowded long tilt, while the Fear & Greed Index reads 17 (extreme fear). A break below $1.0501 would invalidate the bullish scenario.