Ripple’s efforts to obtain a US national bank license, coupled with new regulatory clarity from Washington and a wave of ETF/ETP inflows, are transforming XRP’s image from a speculative altcoin into a bank-grade, high-quality infrastructure at the heart of the new cross-border payment system.
In a new commentary letter highlighted by CoinEdition, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) confirmed that national banks can now participate in “risk-free principal” crypto asset transactions. In this model, banks can act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers, executing transactions on behalf of their clients and earning spreads or commissions without holding the crypto on their own balance sheets; this means treating the transaction more like a brokerage or foreign exchange trading service rather than trading on their own accounts. The OCC emphasizes that institutions must meet capital, liquidity, risk management, and compliance standards when offering these products.
This letter comes at a crucial moment for Ripple. According to Coinpaper, the company applied for a US national bank license and a Federal Reserve master account in July 2025. If approved, “Ripple National Trust Bank” would be able to accept deposits as a fully regulated US bank, offer institutional-level custody services, and process payments directly through the Fed's channels. Analysts note that such a license would place both XRP and Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin within the same regulatory framework as traditional bank money, potentially providing risk-averse institutions with a clearer framework for using Ripple's technology in everyday finance.
Regulatory authorities have approved the move, fulfilling Wall Street's request.
On the asset allocation side, XRP is quietly climbing the quality rankings. As reported by CoinEdition, XRP currently holds approximately 5.17% weight in the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index ETF (BITW), placing it among the fund's top three assets alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. In Bitwise's own words, XRP is “one of the world's longest-traded crypto assets and has the potential to reshape how money moves globally”—a clear “blue chip” designation that very few altcoins in a US-listed portfolio achieve.
Streaming data tells a similar story. As Coinpaper notes, citing CoinShares statistics, digital asset ETPs saw net inflows of $716 million last week, with $245 million of that going to XRP products; nearly six times Ethereum’s weekly inflows and far ahead of Solana, despite both having larger DeFi and NFT ecosystems. U.Today adds that XRP ETFs from issuers like Canary, Grayscale, Bitwise, and Franklin Templeton have recorded net inflows for 16 consecutive days, pushing cumulative on-chain ETF demand to over $1 million in less than a month, making it one of the strongest altcoin ETF launches on record.
From Speculative Tokens to Regulated Infrastructure?
At the market structure level, XRP is trading in the $2 support zone, and analysts are referring to a “recent squeeze” setup where narrowing of price action and increased volume typically precede a sharp move in either direction. NewsBTC's separate technical analysis points to an extended breakout structure with upside targets in the $9-13 region in the long term, while cautioning that volatility and deeper pullbacks remain part of the path.
The OCC's green light for cryptocurrency transactions through banks, Ripple's US bank license application, Bitwise's blue-chip status, and the sharp increase in ETF/ETP inflows all combine to form a coherent new narrative: XRP is no longer just a high-beta transactional instrument, but a fundamental component of a regulated payment, liquidity, and clearing system that banks, ETF issuers, and institutional investors are actively integrating into their infrastructure. While it remains to be seen whether the price will fully fit this narrative, structurally, XRP is being drawn step by step into the heart of mainstream finance.
*This is not investment advice.
