New York, Wednesday, October 02, 2024-Bitwise, a leading crypto asset manager, has filed for an XRP-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), marking a potential new development in the growing crypto investment space. The filing, confirmed as legitimate by Bitwise to Decrypt, was made with the state of Delaware.
This move follows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which have gained significant popularity and attracted billions in inflows quickly. XRP, the cryptocurrency linked to fintech company Ripple, ranks as the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Bitwise declined to comment on the fund still in the filing stage but confirmed its validity.
Ripple originally developed XRP to enhance cross-border payment speeds. However, the company and the cryptocurrency now function separately. Ripple has been embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC since 2020, when the regulator accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through unregistered securities sales via XRP.
In a partial victory for Ripple last year, a judge ruled that programmatic sales of XRP did not qualify as securities, although institutional sales worth $728 million were deemed unregistered securities.
The price of XRP has increased by 3% over the past week, now trading at $0.61.
