XRP Futures Positions on Binance Fall 15%: What’s Next for the Price?
As the size of XRP’s open futures positions on Binance fell about 15% in a week while the price declined just 5%, attention has turned to what comes next after the unwinding of leveraged trades.
An analysis based on CryptoQuant data through September 29 highlighted a sharper contraction in the futures market compared with the pullback in XRP’s price. Open interest, which measures the total value of outstanding futures contracts on Binance, fell from its six-month high of $616.1 million on September 22 to $521.5 million. The decline over one week thus reached approximately $95 million.
Over the same period, XRP fell from $1.572 to $1.49. While open interest dropped 15.3%, the price loss was limited to 5.2%, with the price holding on to most of its previous gains.
Short Positions Were Liquidated First, Followed by Long Positions in XRP
As the price rose above $1.50, $13.7 million in short positions were liquidated on September 21, reaching a six-month high. Two days later, pressure shifted to investors betting on further gains: long liquidations totaled $8.43 million on September 23 and $5.66 million on September 28.
From September 24 to 29, average daily long liquidations came to $3.72 million. That was 2.6 times the six-month daily average.
What Does the Decline in Positions Say About XRP’s Price?
The estimated leverage ratio fell from 0.230 to 0.197 but remained above the six-month average of 0.169. The funding rate also halved over the same period. This suggests that the use of leverage has declined but remains above its historical average.
Binance’s average XRP reserves over the past seven days stood at 2.68 billion XRP, above the 90-day reference level. The average number of daily transactions on the network reached 1.96 million, up 23% week over week.
The analysis notes that when leveraged positions decline faster than prices, this has historically been seen ahead of sideways periods in which the price fluctuates within a certain range. Rising exchange reserves as positions are rebalanced are also cited as a factor supporting this assessment. However, there is not yet a clear signal in either direction; the key point is that XRP’s price has remained relatively resilient as its leverage burden has declined.