Summary ⚈ XRP open interest nears monthly high with over 1.5 billion positions on May 8.⚈ SEC settlement agreement fuels XRP’s price surge to $2.37, up 6.81% in 24 hours.⚈ XRP targets $2.40 next, with potential range-bound trading between $2.58 and $2.75. XRP open interest, which measures the number of derivatives positions open at any given time, is close to a 1-month high. As of May 8, there were slightly more than 1.5 billion such positions open — 1,509,021,450, to be exact. This represents a 13.37% surge from the roughly 1.3 billion (1,330,942,764) positions that were open a day earlier, according to data analyzed by Finbold and retrieved from market data platform CryptoQuant. This high degree of interest in speculative XRP positions could soon surpass the present 1-month high, reached on April 28, which totalled 1,521,467,165 positions, just 0.82% above the May 8 reading. XRP prices and open interest surge in tandem At press time on May 9, the price of XRP was $2.37, with the token having made a 6.81% move to the upside in the last 24 hours. The chief driver of the rally was the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s filing of a settlement agreement letter regarding the longstanding Ripple v. SEC case. With the key obstacle set to become a thing of the past, XRP prices shot up in anticipation of the much higher degree of institutional adoption that is now possible. XRP’s next target is $2.40 — and barring a market-wide bearish turn, the digital asset will more than likely surpass that threshold in the near term. Beyond that, the token could experience a short period of range bound trading in the $2.58 to $2.75 area, after which no significant barriers exist before the $3 mark. Featured image via Shutterstock