XRP Price Jumps. There's Big ETF News for the Crypto. — Barrons.com

By Callum KeownThe price of XRP surged overnight on expectations that the world's first spot exchange-traded fund tracking the cryptocurrency could soon begin trading in Brazil.The token is up more than 5% over the past 24 hours at $2.71, according to data from CoinDesk, and has now gained 350% over the past six months. Much of those gains have come since President Donald Trump's election victory in November, which promised a more crypto-friendly environment.But XRP's rally has stalled in recent weeks, with the coin falling 11% so far in February. That could be about to change, particularly with reports that Brazil's securities regulator has approved an XRP ETF and amid hopes that the U.S. could soon follow.The Hashdex Nasdaq XRP Fund appears on the regulator's website, as being in the pre-operational phase. The fund manager Hashdex confirmed the approval to Brazilian media outlet Portal do Bitcoin.The Brazil launch "marks a pivotal moment for XRP's institutional adoption," Bitget Research analyst Ryan Lee said Thursday. "It's a milestone that may reshape XRP's role in finance and influence worldwide regulatory sentiment toward cryptocurrency investment vehicles," he added.Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledged three more applications for XRP ETFs in filings Wednesday, from CoinShares, Canary Capital and WisdomTree. That's on top of applications it's acknowledged from GrayScale and Bitwise in recent days. Acknowledgment doesn't mean approval, though, but that it is seeking comments on the proposal from interested persons.Write to Callum Keown at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.