XRP's Two-Front Battle: Spot Buyers Tackle a Bleeding Derivatives Market
Published on 07/12/2026 at 18:12 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
A peculiar disconnect is rippling through XRP markets. While spot traders on Binance have been steadily accumulating the token since early July, the derivatives side tells a far more violent story. According to CryptoQuant, long liquidations surged 94% in the week to July 10, landing a staggering 172% above the three-month average. Short liquidations, by contrast, collapsed 53%. The open interest in XRP futures slid to $399 million, as leveraged positions were systematically washed out.
Yet the funding rate on Binance refused to follow the bearish script. After a brief dip into negative territory at the end of June, it rebounded 266% in a single week to 0.007. That means traders opening new longs are paying a premium even as total leverage contracts — an unusual combination that analysts often interpret as a sign that excess speculative froth has been cleared from the market.
Ripple's Near-Death Experience and the $150 Million Fight
The market turmoil comes at a moment when Ripple’s leadership has pulled back the curtain on just how close the company came to dissolving. Speaking at the University of Kansas School of Business, CEO Brad Garlinghouse admitted that in the wake of the SEC’s 2020 lawsuit, he and co-founder Chris Larsen seriously considered distributing the company’s XRP holdings pro rata to shareholders and shutting down. “It was the easier path,” Garlinghouse said — taking on a government with virtually unlimited resources was the far harder choice. Ultimately, they decided to fight in order to save hundreds of jobs.
The four-year legal battle consumed roughly $150 million in legal fees, and the SEC had sued not only the company but Garlinghouse and Larsen personally. Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz confirmed the grim internal outlook: the leadership team received explicit legal advice that the company was finished and beyond saving. The counsel was to cut a deal and save themselves.
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That survival story is now feeding into a strategic shift. Ripple is aggressively positioning XRP for institutional use cases, pushing a concept for secured lending on the XRP Ledger. Institutions will be able to borrow directly on-chain against stablecoins and tokenized assets, with credit checks performed off-chain while settlement and custody remain on the ledger. The move extends Ripple’s business model beyond cross-border payments into structured finance, aiming to generate on-chain liquidity for corporate treasuries and large holders.
ETF Flows Show Selective Institutional Appetite
The institutional narrative is also visible in exchange-traded product data. During the week of June 22–26, US spot Bitcoin ETFs bled $1.79 billion and Ether ETFs shed $273.5 million. Yet XRP spot ETFs pulled in $22.99 million of net inflows, and HYPE-linked products attracted $111.4 million. This pattern suggests allocators are not fleeing crypto altogether but making targeted bets.
The accumulation has extended into its eighth consecutive week, with cumulative XRP ETF inflows reaching $1.49 billion. By July 11, seven XRP spot ETFs were trading in the US with total assets under management of $1 billion and holdings of 964.5 million XRP tokens.
A Token Trapped Below Key Averages
None of this has budged the XRP price much. The token is stuck at $1.09, virtually flat on the day, up a meager 0.63% over the week, and down 3.89% over the month. The longer-term picture is bleak: XRP has lost 41.75% year-to-date and 54.55% over the past 12 months. From its 52-week high of $3.65 touched in July 2025, the token has shed more than 70%. The 52-week low of $1.01 was set on June 26, meaning XRP is just 8% above that floor.
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The 50-day moving average sits at $1.17 and the 200-day at $1.46 — both well above the current price, keeping the trend firmly bearish. The RSI of 44.1 is neutral, while the resistance at $1.1187 is flagged by analysts as a key hurdle. On-chain activity also remains subdued: active addresses are 11% below their three-month average, and transaction volume, though up 3–4% on the week and month, still trails the three-month average by 21%.
Prediction markets had assigned high probabilities to XRP staying above $1, but much lower odds of a breakout above $1.10 — precisely the zone where the token now hovers. The combination of rising spot demand, shrinking open interest, and elevated funding rates has historically preceded reversals, but the token must first reclaim the moving averages that have capped every rally in the second half of the year.
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