CME Group has become the biggest venue for XRP futures by notional open interest, overtaking Binance.

On Sept. 1, local time, blockchain media outlet The Crypto Basic reported this was seen as the result of rapidly increasing professional investor trading via regulated markets during a recent XRP rebound.

Based on CoinGlass data, CME’s XRP futures open interest on Sept. 1 was about 410,000 XRP contracts, worth about $530 million. Binance followed with about 375,000 XRP contracts, worth about $510 million. That put CME at about 17 percent of total XRP futures open interest. Compared with about 10 percent in mid-August, the figure rose by 7 percentage points in two weeks.

The increase was also rapid. CME’s open interest rose about 36 percent, from 284 million XRP on Aug. 17 to 387 million XRP on Aug. 31. Over the same period, the XRP price climbed from about $0.99 to $1.38, up about 40 percent. A key point in this shift is that CME overtook Binance on Sept. 1 by notional open interest as XRP prices recovered.

By contrast, overall futures market open interest fell. XRP futures open interest across all exchanges dropped about 16 percent, from about 2.77 billion XRP on Aug. 17 to about 2.34 billion XRP on Aug. 31. Combined positions at exchanges excluding CME fell by about 533 million XRP over the period, a 21 percent decline.

This structure shows the nature of the recent rally. When prices rise sharply, leveraged positions often increase as well, but this time overall futures open interest declined even as XRP rose about 40 percent. This suggests the recent uptrend did not rely heavily on speculative leverage at overseas exchanges, and that spot demand and professional investor activity may have played a bigger role.

Flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) pointed in the same direction. XRP spot ETFs recorded net inflows of $110.49 million in the week ended Aug. 28. That was the strongest weekly inflow so far in 2026, and cumulative net inflows rose to about $1.66 billion.

Goldman Sachs also re-entered the XRP spot ETF market in the second quarter. A second-quarter 13F filing showed Goldman Sachs held exposure of about $87.4 million across five XRP spot ETFs. It was the largest disclosed holding among the institutions mentioned.

Still, not all professional investors moved in the same direction. Based on U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data as of Aug. 25, leveraged funds held 892 long contracts and 3,206 short contracts, leaving them net short by about 116 million XRP. That was larger than the prior week’s net short of about 57 million XRP. Still, this figure alone does not make it easy to conclude hedge funds were simply betting on an XRP decline.

Dealers and asset managers, by contrast, increased positions with a net buying character. Dealers expanded net long exposure by about 60 million XRP, and asset managers added about 28 million XRP of long exposure. As a result, a trend is becoming clearer in the XRP market, with regulated investment vehicles and institutional participation taking a growing share.