The administrative certification by Cboe BZX Exchange for the 21Shares spot XRP ETF approval means the final starting gun is about to fire. With the fund trading potentially as early as next week, it’s a perfect time to step back from the facts and engage in some crucial what-if analysis. How will the introduction of this major product affect an already exploding XRP ETF market?
Hypothetical Scenario 1 After 21Shares spot XRP ETF approval: The Liquidity Shockwave
Currently, the collective assets under management (AUM) for spot XRP ETFs are nearing $1 billion. This new 21Shares product, seeded with a massive 100 million XRP ($226 million), represents an instant and significant injection of capital and demand. What if this product attracts $500 million in inflows during its first month of trading? This wouldn’t be unreasonable, given the high demand seen in recent launches.
Such rapid capital aggregation would dramatically increase the buying pressure on XRP, as authorized participants scramble to acquire the underlying asset for share creation. This sudden, regulated demand could translate into a sharp, structural shift in XRP’s price floor. Unlike retail excitement, ETF inflows represent permanent, long-term capital that requires continuous, verifiable purchasing of the underlying asset. That’s a fundamentally different type of buying.
Hypothetical Scenario 2: The Custody Race and Competition
The 21Shares spot XRP ETF approval highlights a crucial detail: multi-custody. They use Coinbase, Anchorage, and BitGo. What if this multi-custody model becomes the new standard requirement for all future spot crypto ETFs? This would put enormous pressure on smaller or single-custody funds to restructure, which could slow down the entry of other potential issuers.
Furthermore, competition for the best custodial partners could intensify, driving up service quality and security standards across the entire crypto financial infrastructure. This “what-if” scenario suggests the 21Shares structure might raise the bar for the entire industry, not just for XRP products.
The Long-Term “What If”: Regulatory Spillovers
Credit from Coin Live Update
The initial legal victory established XRP’s status in secondary sales. Now, the 21Shares spot XRP ETF approval solidifies its position in the regulated securities market. What if this continuous institutional embrace of XRP leads the SEC to reconsider its stance on other currently unlisted tokens? The success of XRP ETFs provides tangible evidence that a token can be separated from its initial offering for regulatory purposes. This could lead to favorable ripple effects—pardon the pun—for other large-cap tokens currently caught in regulatory ambiguity, transforming the overall altcoin landscape.
