The altcoin market has a clear leader today as NEAR Protocol (NEAR) staged an explosive breakout, significantly outperforming a flat Bitcoin (BTC) and heading straight to the top of the daily gainers list.

XRP fell by more than 8% over the past week even as large holders increased their positions. Over the same period, whales added over 71 million XRP—valued at around $97.8 million—while an analyst also pointed to a tight Bollinger Bands squeeze that may precede a sharp volatility expansion.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) leader Hyperliquid (HYPE) is continuing its impressive upward trajectory, maintaining a strong position even as major cryptocurrencies face a period of stagnation. As of Friday, May 22, 2026, HYPE is trading at $58.01, showing a 3.64% gain over the past 24 hours.

CME's XRP futures have logged nearly $63 billion in notional trading volume since trading opened on May 19, 2025, with totals measured as of May 15, 2026. The exchange listed both a 50,000-XRP standard contract and a 2,500-XRP micro contract, and reported 1.32 million contracts traded over the period. Despite reported inflows of over $98 million into US spot XRP ETFs so far in May, XRP was down over 26% year to date and traded around $1.35 at the time of writing.

DoubleZero (2Z) led altcoin gains in the past 24 hours, up more than 21% at press time after breaking above a long-held demand zone. The move came alongside a 264% jump in trading volume to over $28 million, while max supply slipped from 10 billion 2Z to 9.998 billion and holders climbed to 6.79K. On charts, bulls pushed above the $0.10–$0.12 area, with $0.15 cited as the next level if $0.10 holds.

Evernorth argues XRP and RLUSD fill different roles on the XRP Ledger, with XRP used as a neutral bridge asset for routing trades and RLUSD aimed at dollar-denominated transactions. In a May 20 Evernorth blog post, chief business officer Sagar Shah said issuer-linked constraints can make stablecoins less suited for universal routing across markets. He added that XRP’s function also extends to liquidity pools, collateral use, and XRPL escrow-based settlement.

CME Group said its XRP futures suite recorded $62.87 billion in notional volume in its first year, alongside 1.32 million contracts traded and $238 million in average daily volume. The exchange shared the figures on May 20, covering activity through May 15, and highlighted growth across XRP futures, options, and spot-quoted XRP futures.

On May 21, Solana (SOL) attempted a rebound as large holders added about $9.7 million worth of SOL, with two new wallets receiving 88,004 SOL ($7.56 million) and 24,500 SOL ($2.11 million). SOL traded around $86.30 after a 1.85% 24-hour gain, while volume rose 38% to $43.66 billion. Analysts said a daily close above $87.21 could improve odds of a move toward $95.62, though SOL remained below its 50-day EMA and ADX was 16.52.