XRP is shaping up to be the cryptocurrency market’s biggest volatility bet.
Coinbase Markets says crypto options currently imply a one-standard-deviation move of roughly 8.9% for XRP through Sept. 27. That tops Solana at 8.0%, Ethereum at 6.9%, and Bitcoin at 5.0%.
More notably, XRP’s expected move is roughly 1.79 times its historical median seven-day move of about 5%. It has the widest volatility premium among the four major cryptocurrencies tracked by Coinbase.
XRP is changing hands at $1.51 at press time. Hence, an 8.9% move would correspond to approximately $1.37 on the downside or $1.64 on the upside if applied symmetrically to the spot price.
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It is important to note that the options market is not predicting which of those directions XRP will take. Traders are paying for protection or exposure to a rather significant price swing.
XRP derivatives activity explodes
XRP derivatives activity has recorded a sharp increase.
CoinGlass data shows XRP futures generated approximately $6.8 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours.
Open interest has climbed to approximately $3.56 billion while XRP trades near $1.51, up roughly 6.7% over the past 24 hours.
The latest rally has taken a significant toll on bearish traders. Approximately $19.2 million worth of XRP positions were liquidated during the past 24 hours. Short positions accounted for roughly $17 million of that amount.
Positioning is now increasingly tilted in the opposite direction. The Binance XRP/USDT long-to-short account ratio stands at roughly 2.18.
That creates a rather peculiar setup. The first stage of the rally was capable of forcing bearish traders out of their positions. However, increasingly crowded long positioning could become a problem for the bulls if XRP stumbles.
Over the past 24 hours, CoinGlass shows roughly $1.81 billion in futures inflows and nearly the same amount in outflows. Over seven days, however, cumulative net flow remains negative by roughly $293 million.
Such conditions can produce large moves in either direction.
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