The price of Ripple’s XRP momentarily pumped after a test page erroneously appeared on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) website, showing that the token’s regulated futures could commence trading in February, pending regulatory approval. Could the potential XRP futures launch kickoff a meteoric XRP surge to $15? Is CME Listing XRP Futures Contracts Soon? The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) stirred excitement in the crypto community earlier on Wednesday after the Chicago-based futures giant posted the futures page for Ripple’s XRP and Solana (SOL) to its staging subdomain. The price of both cryptocurrencies spiked following the leaked CME futures addition, which suggested that those investment vehicles would be listed on Feb. 10. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart corroborated the page’s existence. https://twitter.com/JSeyff/status/1882154205202567623 However, CME later clarified that the beta page was mistakenly made public, and that no official decisions regarding futures contracts based on both tokens had been made. “The beta version of the website, which is often used for mock-up drafts, was made public in error,” a spokesperson of the company told FOX Business . “No official decisions have yet been made about launching futures contracts for either token.” Crypto Investment Products Surge Amid Shifting Regulatory Winds Despite CME’s denial, investors are still hopeful that the XRP futures contracts will be eventually launched. Applications for crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and futures products have increased following the reelection of President Donald Trump and the departure of crypto nemesis Gary Gensler from the SEC. Asset managers have already submitted a slew of regulatory filings to list ETFs holdings altcoins, including XRP. This has led to heightened anticipation that an ETF that offers investors direct exposure to XRP could be approved soon following the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs last year. Trump, who has vowed to transform the U.S. into the “world’s crypto capital,” has tapped pro-crypto commissioner Mark Uyeda to serve as interim SEC Chair until Paul Atkins assumes the role under the new Trump administration. Regulatory hurdles must be cleared for XRP ETFs and futures products to be greenlighted. Pundits suggest that crypto advocate Atkins could facilitate this change. Earlier this month, a team of researchers at JP Morgan said that if approved, XRP ETFs could attract an eye-popping $8 billion worth of fresh cash from investors. XRP Headed For $15? Several crypto strategists have suggested that XRP could hit the $15 mark this year, citing the third-largest crypto’s adoption and bullish chart technicals, institutional demand, and a crypto-friendly Trump regime as the tailwinds. Popular analyst Mickybull Crypto, for instance, has previously shared a chart showing XRP trading closer to the upper boundary of a bull flag with an upside target of $15. As of press time, XRP was changing hands at $3.11, according to CoinGecko data. The remittance token is down 2.3% on the day and roughly 8.2% this week.
