New XRP Margin Pair Available on Major US Exchange

Kraken Pro, the advanced trading platform of crypto exchange Kraken, has announced that XRP is now available for margin trading against Ethereum (ETH).

The list of XRP pairs that are available for margin trading also includes XRP/EUR, XRP/BTC, XRP/CAD, and others.

How margin trading works

Margin trading makes it possible for traders to open larger positions by relying on borrowed funds.

The new pair allows betting on XRP increasing in price against the flagship altcoin.

Traders can borrow funds in order to go long on XRP. Conversely, they can also short the pair if they believe that ETH will be able to outperform the Ripple-linked token.

Kaken allows users to trade with up to 5x leverage with the majority of available pairs. For XRP/ETH, however, leverage is capped at 3x. Leverage limits tend to vary due to such factors as liquidity and market volatility.

For instance, if a user deposits 5 ETH as collateral, they can potentially open a position of up to 15 ETH.

Kraken initially rolled out margin trading all the way back in 2015 with the BTC/EUR pair.

Will ETH outperform XRP this year?

The ETH/XRP pair has plunged by more than 14% since its peak of 0.00096 ETH that was logged on July 22.

Over the past week, ETH is up by 1.9% while XRP is down by 10.6%.

XRP had been steadily gaining ground against ETH since November. It reached its current year-to-date peak of 0.0114 ETH in April. Back then, ETH was in the middle of a rather severe sell-off.

However, the flagship altcoin has managed to bounce back, with Joseph Lubin’s SharpLink helping to push a corporate adoption narrative.