First spot XRP ETF is LIVE: $36M in 3 hours, shaking up the ETF race

XRPC’s flashy debut — numbers and market reaction

Canary Capital’s spot XRP ETF opened with a bang, logging about $36 million in trading volume within its first three hours. Traders saw the fund trading near $25.74 at one snapshot in the afternoon UTC, and that early volume put the ETF at roughly 63% of the opening-day pace set by Bitwise’s Solana fund — not bad for a first impression.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas had originally tossed out a $17 million estimate for the debut, and even he suggested the launch could top the Solana fund’s $57 million opening-day benchmark. So far the numbers are pointing in that direction, and the chatter on desks and feeds reflects the excitement.

Price action was quirky: XRP ticked up about 3.3% to roughly $2.41 around the launch window, while Ethereum and Solana slipped about 1–1.5%. That divergence smells like targeted buying tied to the new ETF rather than a broad crypto market surge — basically, investors liked the product and went shopping for XRP specifically.

Why this matters: payments pitch, regulation, and what could come next

Canary Capital isn’t selling this ETF as a casino token — the marketing leans into the XRP Ledger’s tech chops, pitching it as payment plumbing built for interoperability and real-world settlement. In plain speak: the fund is framed as infrastructure exposure, not purely speculative crypto gambling.

The timing also has regulatory oomph. The SEC spent years litigating with Ripple Labs before settling a few months ago, and this ETF is the first publicly registered spot product for XRP under the Securities Act of 1933. That gives the launch a symbolic weight beyond volume figures: it’s part product debut, part regulatory milestone.

Industry voices have been loud about the potential. Nate Geraci predicted the fund could quickly grow into a billion-dollar product and said flows might dramatically outpace expectations. Back in September, some analysts projected XRP ETFs could pull in as much as $8 billion during their first year — ambitious, but not impossible if institutional interest holds up.

Bottom line: this launch is a real-world test of institutional appetite for XRP after years of legal uncertainty. If the early volume and price moves are any guide, there’s appetite — but whether it keeps up, scales to billions, or settles into modest flows is the next chapter. Stay tuned — this ETF drama looks like it’s just getting started, and it might be more courtroom-to-conference-room than casino-to-meme.