XRP News Today: Institutions and ETFs Power $33B Crypto Surge as HBAR, BNB Lead Charge

The crypto market added $33 billion in value as Bitcoin (BTC) retested its $111,000 level, driven by a mix of institutional adoption, regulatory progress, and sector-specific innovation. While the broader market experienced volatility, select projects like Hedera's HBAR and Binance Smart Chain (BNB) showed resilience, signaling a shift toward conviction-based participation and infrastructure-driven growth, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

Hedera's native token, HBAR, defied the broader market's pullback, surging 7% to $0.2094 amid the launch of the Canary HBAR ETF on Nasdaq. The ETF attracted $2.2 million in inflows on its second day of trading, making HBAR the third cryptocurrency-after Bitcoin and Ethereum-to secure a spot ETF. The Hedera Foundation highlighted the listing as a "watershed moment" for institutional adoption, citing its regulatory-compliant architecture and enterprise-grade infrastructure. Notably, 12 additional ETFs referencing HBAR are in the pipeline, including proposals from Grayscale, T. Rowe Price, and ProShares.

Institutional interest in Hedera extended beyond ETFs. The network recently outpaced all Layer-1 blockchains except Ethereum in monthly active developers, a key indicator of long-term traction. The foundation also announced a collaboration with EQTY Lab, Accenture, and NVIDIA to launch "Verifiable Governance for AI Agents," a system designed to ensure transparent and compliant operations for AI-driven applications using Hedera's blockchain.

Meanwhile, Tether and TRON's joint crime unit, T3 FCU, achieved a milestone by freezing over $300 million in stolen crypto in 2025. This included $6 million recovered from romance scams and $12.3 million in illicit USDT blocked on TRON. The initiative underscores growing collaboration between exchanges, issuers, and regulators to combat fraud, a critical development as crypto hacks and scams surpassed $3 billion this year, according to Yahoo Finance.

Ripple also made headlines by unlocking 1 billion XRP ($2.5 billion) from escrow on November 1, as part of its monthly liquidity management strategy. Despite concerns about supply dilution, analysts expect minimal price impact, as Ripple typically re-locks 70–80% of released tokens. The move coincided with XRP trading between $2.30 and $2.68 in October, fueled by optimism around Ripple's institutional expansion and Evernorth's listing plans, according to a BeInCrypto analysis.

The BNB Smart Chain continued to gain momentum, with daily active addresses reaching 3.62 million in October 2025 and total value locked surging 217% to $17.1 billion. Market observers noted that the $BALZ meme coin, launching on Binance Smart Chain, is capturing attention as Solana and Base communities seek new opportunities. With 70% of BNB meme traders currently profitable, BALZ's presale-closing October 31-has drawn comparisons to past meme token cycles accelerated by high-profile endorsements, according to TradingView.

The market's recent deleveraging phase, marked by a $3.6 billion drop in open interest and a 51% decline in funding rates, has cleared overleveraged positions, leaving a landscape dominated by institutional capital. Bitcoin ETFs added $2.71 billion in inflows during October 6–10, with BlackRock's IBIT holding $65.26 billion. As 85% of institutional firms now allocate to digital assets and Federal Reserve rate cuts hit 93% probability for the next quarter, the sector appears poised for sustained growth.