XRP volume hits $7.4B; CME leveraged funds cut shorts

XRP reached an intraday high of $1.60 on Sept. 22, with about $7.4 billion in reported volume. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly snapshot taken on Sept. 15 and released Sept. 18 shows leveraged funds reduced their net short exposure in CME XRP futures by the equivalent of 46.3 million XRP over the prior week.

On the CME standard XRP future, which equals 50,000 XRP per contract, leveraged funds held 1,585 long contracts and 2,304 short contracts on Sept. 15. That left a net short of 719 contracts, or roughly 35.95 million XRP. A week earlier the category reported 1,280 longs and 2,925 shorts, a net short of 1,645 contracts equal to 82.25 million XRP. Over the week longs rose by 305 contracts and shorts fell by 621, a net reduction of 926 contracts (46.3 million XRP). Total open interest on CME declined by 509 contracts, about 25.45 million XRP.

Coinbase’s three regulated derivatives products reported to the CFTC convert to different XRP equivalents. After conversion, leveraged funds reduced their combined net short on Coinbase by 2.452 million XRP to about 141.6145 million XRP on Sept. 15. The standard Coinbase future (10,000 XRP per contract) fell from a 132.17 million XRP net short to 128.52 million. The NANO XRP contract (500 XRP) shortened by roughly 92,000 XRP, while the NANO XRP PERP STYLE contract (500 XRP) became about 1.29 million XRP more net short. The Coinbase aggregate remained larger than the CME net short on Sept. 15.

Contract specifications and product lists differ across venues. CME lists a Micro XRP product that does not appear in the CFTC table. The Coinbase perpetual-style product is a regulated, five-year cash-settled contract that applies funding adjustments. Under CFTC rules, a market is included in Commitments of Traders reports only when reporting thresholds and trader counts meet the agency’s criteria.

The CFTC reports reflect positions as of Sept. 15 and were published on Sept. 18, before the Sept. 22 price peak. The leveraged-funds category groups traders by self-reported business activity and does not identify individual motives. Short positions can represent directional bets, hedges, offsets to other derivatives, or parts of basis and relative-value trades.

The next weekly CFTC report, covering Sept. 22 and scheduled for release on Sept. 25, will show whether the cross-venue position differences persisted through the Sept. 22 price movement.