XRP’s price performance eliminates the entry into fast money, while leaving behind a more sustainable class of holders.
According to Crypto Slates According to data, XRP is trading at $1.37 at the time of writing, down 55% in the past six months.
This comes as facts CoinGlass shows that XRP open interest has fallen to around $2.40 billion from a peak of $10.94 billion in July, a drop of around 78% that puts the positioning at its lowest level since January 2025.
The decline highlights a market that has already flushed away much of the speculative leverage that fueled the token’s earlier rally following Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.
At the same time, several parts of the XRP market are still showing signs of longer-term involvement, with significant whale accumulation and off-exchange transfers.
This is happening at the same time that XRP Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) continue to hold more than $1 billion in assets.
Essentially, the XRP support base currently comes from holders who appear more willing to tolerate volatility, and from Ripple’s business strategy, which continues to broaden the token’s potential access to regulated financial channels.
Leverage has been removed from trading
The first major change in the market structure of XRP is clearly visible in the derivatives market.
Facts from CryptoQuant show that open interest on major XRP futures platforms has fallen sharply from mid-2025 highs, while repeated liquidation events have hit leveraged traders.
Binance remains the largest single venue, with current open interest for XRP at $222 million, followed by ByBit at $195 million, according to CryptoQuant’s exchange rate breakdown.
These levels remain above the 2024 lows, but are well below the peak conditions that accompanied XRP’s July 2025 cycle high.
CryptoQuant’s liquidation data shows that the liquidations of long traders have dominated short traders in both number and size.
This pattern usually causes financing rates to fall, leaving the market in a more neutral or defensive position.
In practice, traders who used leverage to chase upside have already been forced out or opted to take a step back, while those with bearish positioning are enjoying some reprieve.
Taken together, the data points to a market that has already undergone an extensive deleveraging cycle. That changes the character of the trade.
A sharp drop in open interest could remove one source of downward pressure, as each new decline leaves fewer leveraged positions exposed to forced liquidations. It also means that any new upward movement must be driven more by spot market demand and less by reflexive short-term positioning.
Whales and ETF holders will remain in place during the withdrawal
While speculative positioning has fallen sharply, data from on-chain and ETF flows suggests that another cohort has retained exposure during the sell-off.
For context, facts from CryptoQuant shows that XRP has seen large currency outflows during the recent period of market pressure.
On February 6, Binance recorded an outflow of 530 million XRP, worth more than $720 million at the time, when the token was trading around $1.37. A second major move followed on February 9, with a total of 278 million XRP.
Such transfers usually reduce the immediately available exchange supply and are often read as a sign that whales or institutions are moving assets into cold storage or preparing to hold them for extended periods.
The signal is useful, but in itself does not provide a complete answer. Currency outflows can reflect accumulation, but also internal portfolio movements or custody realignments.
Still, the magnitude of the February 6 and 9 moves fall within the same time frame when ETF traders’ conviction in the token remains strong, lending more weight to the episode.
On March 10, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said declared that the XRP spot ETFs have amassed more than $1.4 billion since launching in November.
Seyffart pointed out that the capital has remained in place even after XRP fell significantly from the $3 level it was just before the ETFs went live.
Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X that the display was remarkable given the decline.
According to him:
“This is really impressive considering these launched with a brutal 45% decline. Traditionally, inflows are virtually impossible for an ETF with a reverse shiny object moment, and especially if they are brand new.”
Balchunas attributed the resilience largely to dedicated buyers who are “largely XRP superfans versus casual retail.”
That observation fits with the market history of XRP. The token has maintained a loyal following of the “XRP army” through the years of the legal clash at the SEC and long periods when broader crypto attention shifted elsewhere.
The ETF data shows that loyalty carries over into the listed package, where investors often behave differently than they do in spot or leveraged exchanges.
The contrast between collapsing open interest and stable ETF assets sets a clear tone for the current market, suggesting that the base of holders supporting XRP has become less reliant on momentum traders.
Ripple’s growing regulated footprint gives XRP market leverage
Ripple’s continued business expansion gives XRP an additional layer of support, with the company maintaining that the token remains central to its payments, custody, liquidity and treasury management strategy.
The latest move came on March 11, when Ripple said it had secured an Australian Financial Services license through the acquisition of BC Payments Australia.
That followed recent licensing changes in Britain and Luxembourg, as part of a wider effort to expand its regulated footprint globally. Ripple says it now holds more than 75 regulatory licenses worldwide.
At the same time, the company has continued to scale the business infrastructure behind that regulatory reach.
According to Ripple, Ripple Payments now operates in more than 60 major markets and has processed more than $100 billion in volume.
Meanwhile, Ripple is also aggressively expanding its stablecoin business. RLUSD’s market cap recently surpassed $1.3 billion, while the company also announced conditional approval for an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Charter (OCC).
Notably, the Brad Garlinghouse-led company has also quietly built a full-stack institutional finance platform that clears, secures and moves digital money globally.
Garlinghouse also noted that:
“AI is becoming a fundamental part of our products – especially in cash forecasting and real-time liquidity management for the CFO’s office. Employee productivity may be where AI starts, but the end goal is much bigger.”
Together, these milestones give XRP a supporting story that many major altcoins lack.
While Bitcoin remains the market’s main macro driver, XRP increasingly trades on a more company-specific narrative related to regulated access, cross-border payments and financial infrastructure.