The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, which operates the largest financial derivatives exchanges worldwide, recently announced that XRP (XRP) futures contracts will go live on May 19.

According to the April 24 announcement, investors have the option of choosing between micro-sized contracts, featuring 2,500 XRP, or standard contract sizes of 50,000 XRP. All XRP futures contracts will be cash-settled.

In January 2025, the CME Group signaled an impending launch of XRP futures before quietly pulling the related page from its website.

CME’s announcement is the latest in a growing wave of crypto-focused financial products entering the market or awaiting regulatory approval in the US, a sign that cryptocurrencies have reached a new level of institutional acceptance.

The XRP ticker symbol displayed on the CME Group website. Source: CME Group

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Financial institutions push for altcoin financial products

On March 17, Solana (SOL) futures debuted on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The SOL contracts featured a standard contract size of 500 SOL and the more accessible micro contracts for 25 SOL.

In April 2025, asset manager Canary Capital submitted an application to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a staked Tron (TRX) exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The asset manager’s proposed ETF will hold spot TRX but will stake a portion of the token to accrue yield, which, at the time of this writing, is 4.5% for TRX.

On April 22, Crypto.com and the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), a media conglomerate partially owned by the US President, signed a deal to launch an ETF tracking US crypto projects.

The ETF will launch under the Truth.Fi banner, which is US President Trump’s decentralized finance project, and is expected to start trading later in 2025.

List of pending ETF applications. Source: Eric Balchunas

There are now more than 70 crypto ETF applications waiting to be reviewed by the SEC, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

“Everything from XRP, Litecoin, and Solana to Penguins, Doge, 2x Melania, and everything in between. Gonna be a wild year,” Balchunas wrote in an April 21 X post.

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