FedNow Goes Cross-Border Without XRP: Quant, Solana and NEAR's Week

In a single week, the Federal Reserve took its instant payment system international without mentioning XRP, the year’s biggest hack took more XRP than any other asset, and Quant, Solana and NEAR all made headlines for very different reasons.

The video’s argument is that if you only watch one coin, you miss most of what is moving the market. Here is each story, what is confirmed, and what is still an open question.

Is the Fed doing XRP’s job without XRP?

The Fed is turning on cross-border payments through FedNow, the instant payment system it runs for American banks. Until now, FedNow only moved money inside the US.

That is the exact job XRP was built for. When a bank sends money abroad today, it typically keeps cash parked in a foreign account, known as a nostro or vostro account, so it is ready when a payment arrives. Ripple’s pitch for a decade has been that a bank can instead buy XRP, send it across in seconds and convert it into the other currency at the far end, with no parked cash.

There is no mention of XRP or Ripple anywhere in the Fed’s announcement. The video offers context: a Fed system was always going to happen, and this one covers only payments going in and out of the US, while most cross-border money never touches the US at all. For holders who waited years for this moment, though, it is a reminder that the job can be done without the coin.

What happened in the Bitget hack?

Bitget, which says it has more than 125 million users, confirmed that more than $350 million was stolen in a single hack and halted withdrawals while it dealt with it. The video calls it the biggest crypto hack of the year.

Item	Figure reported in the video
Total stolen	About $357 million
XRP stolen	103 million XRP, about $157 million
XRP’s share	The single largest item, more than the Ethereum or stablecoins taken
Industry total this year	Nearly $2 billion across more than 300 hacks, roughly one a day

The point the video stresses is that those coins were not in anyone’s personal wallet. They sat on the exchange, because that is where many people leave them after buying.

Its suggested fix for coins left on an exchange is a hardware wallet, with the recovery phrase written down and kept off every internet-connected device. It also notes the trade-off: moving coins into self-custody makes you solely responsible for them, and a mistake cannot be undone, so larger holders should learn the process carefully before doing it.

Why does the Citi and Coinbase deal matter?

Citi partnered with Coinbase to bring stablecoin payments to its institutional clients. Stablecoin payments move dollars on a blockchain rather than through the banking system, at any hour, without waiting for a settlement window.

Citi’s institutional clients are some of the largest companies in the world moving money across borders. The video’s observation is that the cross-border problem crypto promised to solve is starting to be solved, just not necessarily through the coin many of its viewers hold.

The video also notes the backdrop: global money supply hit a record $103.4 trillion, with the four biggest economies adding roughly $1 trillion in August alone, the tenth monthly increase in a row. Its argument is that when governments create more money, each unit buys a little less, and historically that has been a tailwind for assets that cannot be printed, starting with Bitcoin. That is the video’s reading of history, not a prediction.

What is behind Quant’s move?

Quant’s token rose 64% in a single day and roughly 300% over the week, according to the video. There is a concrete reason. The Clearing House, which runs payment infrastructure for 25 major US banks, picked Quant to handle interoperability for a network that clears tokenized bank deposits. It connects to the Real-Time Payments network and CHIPS, rails that move trillions of dollars a day.

That is a named institution choosing a named company, not a rumor. But the video flags two things most coverage skipped:

1. Neither The Clearing House nor Quant has said the QNT token is required. The deal is about Quant’s technology.
2. The network does not launch until sometime in 2027.

So the technology is being adopted. Whether that creates demand for the token is a separate question, and the video’s point is that the price is moving as though it has already been answered.

Why is big money buying Solana?

Solana broke $120 for the first time since January after being rejected just below that level several times, and is up about 60% from its August low, according to the video. Its ETFs took in $188 million in one week, the most since they launched, and BlackRock’s Solana fund took $128 million of that. In other words, one very large buyer did most of the work.

The argument for Solana comes from Bitwise’s chief investment officer, in a clip in the video. He says the SEC chairman Paul Atkins and BlackRock’s Larry Fink are both saying stocks, bonds and funds will move onto blockchain-based rails, and the question becomes which blockchain. He names Ethereum and Solana as the two leading contenders and says Solana is “architected to be the new Wall Street.” He also adds that there are no guarantees and that these markets are early.

What does the NEAR ETF change?

Bitwise’s NEAR ETF was approved for trading on the New York Stock Exchange’s Arca platform. Anyone with a normal brokerage account can now get NEAR exposure the way they buy a stock, and the video notes it opens the door to money that cannot hold crypto directly, such as some pension and retirement accounts. It also cautions that an ETF guarantees nothing, and plenty have launched and gone quiet.

The video says the more interesting part is chain abstraction. NEAR’s co-founder explains that NEAR runs a multi-party computation network, part of its validator set, that can sign transactions on other chains. A NEAR smart contract can therefore control addresses on Solana, Ethereum, Zcash and others, and know when it has received funds there. In his words, it puts on-chain what centralized exchanges and custodians normally do, and makes it programmable.

What to watch next

• FedNow’s cross-border rollout, and whether any bridge asset ever appears in it.
• Bitget’s recovery and withdrawals, and how much XRP holders keep on exchanges.
• The Clearing House network, and whether any role for the QNT token is ever stated before the 2027 launch.
• Solana ETF flows, and whether buying broadens beyond one large fund.
• NEAR ETF demand, as a test of whether new access brings new buyers.

The video’s broader point is about concentration. It does not say XRP is finished, but argues that holding a single coin means watching other parts of the market move without you. How you respond to that is a personal decision.