XRP Open Interest Hits $2.78B as Traders Bet on Rebound

XRP traders are increasingly betting on a rebound even as the token struggles near $1 and online commentary turns its most bearish in three months. Futures open interest, the total money tied up in outstanding derivatives positions, rose to about $2.78 billion on Monday, up 2% over 24 hours, with trading volume jumping 55% to roughly $1.17 billion, according to CoinGlass. The positioning split reveals a market betting heavily on higher prices even as broader sentiment deteriorates.

Leveraged Traders Lean Heavily Long

More than three accounts on Binance held long XRP positions for every one holding a short, and the ratio among the exchange’s largest traders widened to about 3.6 to one. OKX showed an identical 3.6-to-one split. A long position is a bet that price will rise; leverage lets a trader control a larger position than their capital would otherwise allow, at the cost of being automatically forced out of the trade if the market moves far enough against them.

The scale of that positioning becomes clearer measured in tokens rather than dollars. About 2.77 billion XRP now sits in futures positions, up from roughly 2 billion earlier this summer and approaching levels last seen when the token traded at several times its current price, having climbed from 2.67 billion XRP, worth $2.73 billion, as recently as August 12. CoinGlass data shows the long-to-short ratio across all trading venues combined sits closer to balanced, at about 0.93 over 24 hours, meaning the heavy long bias is concentrated specifically on Binance, OKX, and among their largest accounts rather than reflecting the broader market.

Sentiment Sours as Network Activity Rises

Commentary about XRP across X, Reddit, Telegram, and other channels reached its most negative level in three months this week, according to onchain analysis firm Santiment, after the token failed to sustain a rally. XRP trades around $1, down sharply from above $3 at last year’s highs, and has fallen roughly 47% over the past several weeks according to recent tracking. Despite the negative chatter, the XRP Ledger has grown busier: nearly 50,000 addresses were active over a 24-hour stretch, the most in more than two months, after activity had slid toward 2026 lows in July. An active address is any wallet that sent or received tokens during the period, indicating broader usage without revealing whether the activity reflects buying, selling, or internal transfers between a holder’s own wallets.

Whale accumulation has continued alongside the sentiment decline. Santiment data shows the number of XRP Ledger wallets holding at least 1 million XRP increased by 32 over the past three months, even as XRP’s market capitalization fell roughly 29% over the same window, a divergence suggesting large holders have kept accumulating through the downturn rather than retreating alongside the price. Separately, inflows into U.S. spot XRP ETFs have dropped roughly 96% since their initial launch, raising questions about whether the funds can approach the $8 billion first-year inflow forecast some analysts had projected.

Conclusion

Watch what happens if XRP breaks decisively below $1: leveraged long positions that run out of collateral get automatically closed by exchanges, a process that itself adds selling pressure into an already weak market. XRP traded around $1 during Monday’s Asian morning hours, even as bitcoin topped $64,000 and Hyperliquid’s HYPE jumped 8% on the week, underscoring how XRP’s underperformance stands apart from the broader crypto market’s tone. With derivatives traders positioned for a bounce while social sentiment and price both point lower, XRP’s next move will likely hinge on whether the heavily long positioning on Binance and OKX gets validated by an actual price recovery, or unwound through forced liquidations if the $1 level fails to hold.