XRP has staged a sharp rally, pushing above the $1.40 level and wiping out millions of dollars worth of bearish positions in the process.
The Ripple-linked cryptocurrency is currently trading near $1.402, up roughly 8.4% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data. The move has taken XRP’s market capitalization to around $88 billion.
The sudden price jump caught traders betting against XRP off guard.
Over the past 24 hours, approximately $10.41 million worth of leveraged XRP positions were liquidated. Short traders accounted for $8.05 million of that amount, compared with just $2.36 million in long liquidations.
In other words, roughly 77% of all XRP liquidations during the period came from bearish positions.
The imbalance has been even more dramatic over shorter time frames. During the past four hours, XRP recorded around $1.06 million in liquidations, with shorts accounting for approximately $1.02 million.
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This suggests that XRP’s rapid move higher triggered a wave of forced buying as exchanges automatically closed leveraged short positions that could no longer meet margin requirements.
When shorts are liquidated, traders effectively have to buy back the asset they had bet against. If enough positions are closed at once, this can add additional upward pressure to an already rising market, creating what is commonly known as a short squeeze.
XRP derivatives activity surges
The rally has also been accompanied by a substantial increase in speculative activity.
XRP futures trading volume has reached roughly $5.51 billion over the past 24 hours, compared with only about $1.29 billion in spot trading volume.
That means futures volume is more than four times larger than spot volume, highlighting just how heavily derivatives traders are participating in the latest move.
Open interest, which represents the total value of outstanding futures contracts that have not yet been closed, currently stands at approximately $3.05 billion.
Rising open interest alongside a rising XRP price generally indicates that traders are adding fresh leveraged positions rather than merely closing existing ones.
Several major exchanges have experienced particularly strong increases in XRP futures activity.
Binance recorded roughly $1.54 billion in XRP/USDT futures volume, up more than 68%, while OKX volume surged nearly 81% to approximately $613 million. Bybit recorded about $631 million, up more than 71%.
Kraken’s XRP futures volume jumped more than 150%, while Coinbase saw an increase of nearly 120%.
Traders lean bullish
Positioning data also shows a bullish tilt among traders on some of the biggest derivatives platforms.
The Binance XRP/USDT long-to-short account ratio currently stands at 2.37, meaning there are more than twice as many accounts positioned long as short.
The ratio among Binance’s top traders is even higher at approximately 2.76 based on accounts, while their position-based ratio stands at 1.77.
OKX also shows a strong long bias, with its XRP long-to-short account ratio at around 2.13.
The increasingly bullish positioning comes after a powerful month for XRP.
Despite remaining down roughly 24% since the beginning of the year, XRP has gained almost 40% over the past 30 days and about 23% over the past three months.
The latest breakout above $1.40 now puts the focus on whether XRP can sustain the rally once the immediate short-liquidation pressure fades.
For now, the combination of rising prices, expanding open interest and surging futures volume shows that leverage has become a major part of XRP’s latest advance. That can help amplify further gains if momentum continues, but it can also increase the risk of violent liquidations in the opposite direction if the price suddenly reverses.
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