XRP Holds $1.29 as Futures Market Undergoes Leverage Reset

XRP is trading near $1.30, gaining about 1%, even as activity in the derivatives market continues to shrink. Open interest has dropped from $1.128 billion in August to $871.22 million, meaning more than $250 million in futures exposure has disappeared in less than a month.

The divergence between XRP’s spot price and declining derivatives activity raises an important question: is bullish conviction fading, or are traders simply unwinding leverage while demand in the spot market remains relatively stable?

XRP Futures Deleveraging Has Not Yet Confirmed a Bearish Trend

Open interest can fall when traders close contracts, positions are liquidated or market participants reduce exposure before a potential move. Therefore, the decline in XRP futures interest does not automatically indicate that sentiment has turned bearish.

The reduction has been broad across major exchanges. Binance open interest has fallen from $558 million to $423 million, while Bybit has declined from $379 million to $291 million. The simultaneous decreases suggest traders are reducing derivatives exposure across the market rather than exiting through a single platform.

Funding rates and positioning offer additional context. Binance’s open-interest-weighted funding rate remains above zero, indicating that long exposure continues to exceed short exposure across outstanding contracts. The combined 24-hour long/short ratio is 0.9904, close to neutral, although larger market participants remain significantly more long-biased.

Account-level figures from Binance and OKX show traders holding long exposure at roughly 2.5 to 3 times the level of shorts. Binance’s top traders also remain net long based on both the number of accounts and the size of their positions.

Liquidations across the market reached $9.67 million during the past 24 hours. Long positions represented $4.87 million of those liquidations, while shorts accounted for $4.80 million. The almost equal split indicates that there was no clear one-sided liquidation event.

The picture changed over the preceding 12 hours, when $500.96K in long positions were liquidated compared with $148.49K in shorts. That imbalance occurred during the decline that preceded XRP’s latest rebound. Even so, the broader 24-hour data shows that liquidations remain relatively balanced.

ETF flows provide another indication that spot demand has remained active. XRP ETFs recorded $3.5 million in inflows on September 16 through Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ fund, extending their positive streak to 10 days even as XRP fell during that session.

The flow picture was weaker for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin ETFs registered $295 million in outflows, while Ethereum ETFs saw $224 million withdrawn. XRP consequently remained among the crypto ETF categories recording net inflows.

Earlier developments in September also show how quickly XRP derivatives positioning has changed. Binance funding briefly moved into negative territory around September 7 following heavy liquidations before recovering to positive levels.

CryptoQuant contributor Amr Taha identified an “unusual structure” around the same period, noting that open interest was increasing even as perpetual CVD remained persistently negative. The divergence illustrates that futures positioning and aggressive taker activity can send different signals.

XRP’s current drop in open interest should therefore be viewed alongside the multiple leverage adjustments that have occurred across the market during September.

XRP’s $1.29 Support Remains Critical

On the 8-hour chart, XRP is trading near the center of a parallel channel formed by descending support and resistance lines. The pattern has contained price movements for several weeks.

The weekly chart highlights the $1.29 area through the 20-week EMA, while the 50-week EMA sits near $1.52 and acts as a higher resistance level.

A daily or weekly close below $1.29 would break the 20-week EMA as well as the nearby Fibonacci confluence. That could shift market attention toward the $1 psychological support level.

Conversely, XRP moving above $1.40 would represent a break of the descending channel resistance. Such a move could expose the $1.60–$1.70 region, which is closer to the 50-week EMA.

The next decisive move around the $1.29 support and $1.40 resistance levels could provide a clearer indication of whether the current decline in futures exposure is simply a deleveraging phase or part of a broader change in XRP’s market structure.