Everything felt like it was finally happening. Back in the tail end of 2024, the crypto world was basically obsessed with October deadlines. Bitwise had just dropped their S-1 filing. Canary Capital followed suit. It looked like the SEC was finally cornered. But if you’ve been following the Ripple saga for more than five minutes, you know nothing is ever that simple.
Fast forward to where we are now in early 2026. Looking back at those xrp etf october deadlines, it’s wild to see how much of the "imminent moon" talk was actually just noise, even if the end result eventually landed in our favor.
People were tracking every single filing date like it was a countdown to a rocket launch. You had Bitwise filing on October 2, 2024. Then Canary Capital threw their hat in the ring on October 8. The community was convinced that the SEC’s window to appeal the Ripple decision—which also had a massive deadline in early October—would dictate the fate of these funds.
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It did. Just not the way the bulls hoped at the time.
The Chaos of the 2024 October Deadlines
Honestly, October 2024 was a mess. You had two things happening at once: the SEC’s appeal against Judge Analisa Torres’s ruling and the clock starting on these new ETF applications.
When the SEC filed its notice of appeal on October 2, 2024, the "expert" consensus on X (formerly Twitter) shifted instantly from "ETF tomorrow" to "ETF never." Experts like Alex Thorn from Galaxy Digital were literally saying the chances of an XRP ETF succeeding dropped to "near zero" because of that appeal.
But here’s what most people missed back then.
The xrp etf october deadlines weren't just about a single "yes" or "no" from Gary Gensler. They were the start of a grueling administrative process. For example, Bitwise’s filing kicked off a 240-day clock once it hit the Federal Register. Most retail investors were looking for a move in weeks. The reality was a game of months and, eventually, years.
Why the 2025 Delays Actually Happened
If you think 2024 was dramatic, 2025 was a flat-out soap opera. By the time the next round of October deadlines rolled around in 2025, we weren't just fighting the SEC. We were fighting a government shutdown.
I'm not kidding.
In October 2025, a U.S. government shutdown effectively paused the SEC’s ability to do... well, anything. This pushed the "final" deadlines for firms like Grayscale, 21Shares, and WisdomTree from mid-October 2025 into the late November/December window.
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Nate Geraci, who runs The ETF Store, called the delay "inevitable." Eric Balchunas at Bloomberg was a bit more poetic, calling it a "rain delay." It wasn't a cancellation, but for the people who had been holding XRP since 2017, it felt like just another kick in the teeth.
The Current State of XRP ETFs in 2026
So, where does that leave us today, on January 16, 2026?
Believe it or not, we actually have them now. The "big bang" moment finally happened in late 2025.
REX Osprey’s XRPR was technically the first to start trading spot exposure in September 2025, but the floodgates really opened when the pure grantor-trust ETFs—the ones from Bitwise and Franklin Templeton—hit the tape in late November.
The numbers are kinda staggering:
- $1.37 billion: Total net inflows into U.S. XRP ETFs as of early January 2026.
- November 13, 2025: The day Canary Capital’s XRPC finally began trading on Nasdaq.
- Zero: The number of days U.S. XRP ETFs have seen net outflows since they debuted.
It’s a weird contrast. While Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have been seeing some heavy outflows lately (BTC lost about $2.4 billion in a recent window), XRP has been this weirdly stable "structural" play.
Investors aren't necessarily trading it for a quick 10x anymore. They’re using it as a portfolio hedge. It’s become a "compliance-heavy" pick for institutions who like Ripple’s focus on cross-border payments rather than just "decentralized everything."
The SEC Appeal: Still Lingering?
Wait, didn't the SEC appeal everything?
Yeah, they did. But as we see now, the legal process and the ETF process moved on parallel tracks. The appeal by the SEC is still grinding through the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments happened in late 2025, and we’re still waiting for a final, final ruling, which most legal eagles like Jeremy Hogan expect by March or April of this year (2026).
The SEC basically realized they couldn't stop the ETFs while the "non-security" status of secondary sales was still the law of the land, even if it's being contested.
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What This Means for Your Portfolio
If you've been waiting for the xrp etf october deadlines to make you a millionaire overnight, you've probably realized by now that the market priced this in years ago.
XRP is currently hovering around that $2.00 to $2.40 range. It’s a far cry from the sub-dollar days of 2024, but it’s not $100. The ETF "boom" provided a floor, not a moon mission.
Here is the cold, hard truth: the ETF is just a wrapper. It makes it easier for your grandma’s financial advisor to buy XRP, but it doesn't change the underlying utility of the XRP Ledger.
Actionable Steps for the "Post-Deadline" Era
- Stop chasing deadline "leaks." We have the products now. The "deadlines" that matter today are the quarterly earnings of the ETF issuers and the 13F filings that show which hedge funds are actually buying.
- Watch the support levels. Technical analysts like Axel Rudolph have been pointing at the $1.80 to $1.95 zone. If the ETF inflows ever turn negative, that’s your danger zone.
- Ignore the "Builder Mindshare" FUD. A lot of skeptics, like Brian Huang from Glider, argue that XRP doesn't have enough developers compared to Solana or Ethereum. They might be right. But ETFs aren't about developers; they're about liquidity and institutional "blessing."
- Diversify your "Alt-ETF" exposure. XRP isn't the only game in town anymore. Solana ETFs launched in October 2025 and have already pulled in nearly $800 million. The "altcoin ETF" era is a basket, not a single coin.
The saga of the xrp etf october deadlines is a masterclass in how slow-moving regulatory gears can be. It was never about one single day in October. It was about a three-year chess match between Ripple, the SEC, and the massive asset managers who wanted a piece of the action.
The checkers are off the board. The pieces are set. Now we just see if the utility actually follows the liquidity.