These Signals Hinted a Big Move Was Coming

Here’s what happened behind the scenes before, during, and after XRP’s major double-digit rally to $1.14.

Most of July and August were highly dull trading periods for the entire cryptocurrency market, with little to no movement, a lack of actual interest, and missing volume.

It all changed yesterday afternoon when the market was revived with major price rallies across all assets. Ripple’s XRP also exploded alongside its peers, but there could be more to its story.

The Story

The cross-border token finally broke decisively away from the $1.00 danger zone, surging by double digits to a monthly peak at $1.14 before it retraced slightly to the current $1.10. There are several reasons, besides the big one behind the market’s resurgence, that can be attributed to XRP’s uptick.

As reported earlier this week, whale activity picked up on several fronts. The number of transactions worth more than $1 million soared by 280% within a single day, reaching almost 40 compared with roughly 10 during each of the preceding two days.

Although this wasn’t necessarily an accumulation signal since large transactions can be buying, selling, or simply transfers, it followed another notable whale development in which market participants holding between 10 million and 100 million XRP purchased roughly 72 million tokens in 24 hours.

The token supply sitting on exchanges was also moving in the right direction for months, as over 240 million XRP left Binance, Upbit, and Coinbase between June and mid-August. These platforms’ combined reserves went down from roughly 5.36 billion to 5.12 billion tokens.

Last but not least, the overall network activity has risen lately, with the XRP Ledger recording almost 50,000 active addresses within 24 hours, the highest figure in over two months.

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XRP Bears Caught Off Guard

XRP open interest had skyrocketed to $2.7 billion earlier this week, the highest since the October 2025 massacre. 75% of these positions were positioned long. However, that didn’t mean three-quarters of the actual capital was betting on higher prices.

Notional exposure remained balanced because every derivatives contract has both a long and short side. Perhaps more importantly, the actual trading flow leaned bearish. Around $375 million in 24-hour short volume was recorded compared with $304 million on the long side.

Popular analyst Bird also weighed in on the OI, indicating that when it surged between 2022 and 2024, XRP ultimately got wrecked. However, it all changed in November 2024.

“That time was different. OI exploded… but instead of price rejecting and leverage being wiped out, XRP broke out with it. A completely new trend began.”

Bird added that XRP spent the past few months getting “absolutely destroyed,” as prices capitulated, leverage was flushed, and sentiment deteriorated. OI built up quietly again, and XRP responded with a massive green candle.

The analyst admitted that “one green candle doesn’t confirm anything,” but believes the comparison to previous cycles looks less like the failed leverage spikes of 2022-2024 and “increasingly” more like November 2024 as long as XRP “keeps moving higher while OI remains healthy.”