Brad Garinghouse, chief executive officer at Ripple, has already commented on the much-awaited launch of CME Group’s XRP futures, claiming that the rollout of the product has marked a major institutional milestone for the token.
Earlier today, CME confirmed that XRP futures (both standard and micro versions) went live after months of anticipation.
Institutional players will now be able to gain exposure to one of the leading altcoins without directly holding it.
XRP futures can be traded outright, meaning that traders simply buy or sell a contract.
Traders can also agree to buy or sell XRP futures on a fixed basis to the day’s index close instead of buying them at the current price.
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It is also possible to trade XRP via block trades that allow large traders to execute large numbers of contracts.
According to Garlinghouse, Hidden Road, the prime brokerage firm that was acquired by Ripple earlier this year for $1.25 billion, executed the very first block trade at the open.
Despite the launch of the futures, XRP is currently down by nearly 4% over the past 24 hours. The lack of volatility is not surprising given that the launch of the futures, which were first announced in April.
It remains to be seen how much volume XRP futures will be able to generate during the first day of trading, since it will be an important indicator of institutional momentum.
As reported by U.Today, Solana-based CME futures debuted with a rather underwhelming volume in March. The launch of the product also had a rather negligible impact on the price action of the leading altcoin.