Mastercard named Ripple (CRYPTO:XRP) a settlement partner in its new AI-payments network this week, a deal that puts the XRP Ledger inside one of the biggest payment systems on the planet. A few years ago, news like that would have sent the XRP price flying, but this week it barely moved. XRP trades near $1.14, down nearly 40% this year, and many holders who once celebrated every announcement have mostly stopped paying attention.
According to Santiment, that fatigue has now pushed XRP’s sentiment to its most negative level in eight months. But what’s interesting is what happened the last time the crowd was this beaten down: XRP rallied roughly 50% shortly after. So is that bounce setting up again, or is this round of FUD different?
Why XRP Sentiment Just Crashed to an 8-Month Low
Santiment’s weighted sentiment tracks two things: how much people talk about XRP, and whether that talk leans positive or negative. The metric has now fallen to its lowest level since October 2025.
Part of the negativity is simple, since the XRP price has been falling all year. But Santiment’s bigger point is the fatigue: traders watched the catalysts they spent years waiting on finally arrive. The SEC and CFTC classified XRP as a digital commodity in March and Ripple keeps adding partnerships like the Mastercard deal, but none of it has moved the XRP price.
So rather than panicking, the crowd is walking away. XRP discussion volume keeps falling while the commentary that remains skews overwhelmingly negative, which suggests many holders have either moved on or expect a lot less than they used to. And the last time this condition showed up, it marked the bottom of the worst crash of the cycle.
The Last Time FUD Was This High, XRP Rallied 50% in Three Weeks
XRP sentiment was last this negative on October 10, 2025, which was the day President Trump announced 100% tariffs on China. The crypto market went into record liquidations, and XRP collapsed 41% in a single session, falling from $2.77 to $1.64. Sentiment cratered right alongside the price, and that crash is the trough today’s reading just matched.
But once the liquidations were flushed, the XRP price stabilized near $1.77, and the coin climbed roughly 50% from there in about three weeks, reaching the $2.60 to $2.65 area by late October. Anyone who bought the fear made quick money, and that’s the trade XRP bulls are hoping to catch again.
That said, XRP’s move last time out didn’t hold, because the spot ETF launches in November turned into a sell-the-news event, with traders who bought the buildup cashing out once the funds went live. The price slid back through the low $2s, and XRP ended 2025 around $1.88, well below where it traded before the crash.
So, the last sentiment extreme marked a tradable bounce, not a lasting bottom, and this one playing out differently depends on what has changed since then.
What Makes This XRP Capitulation Different?
October’s crash did all its damage in one liquidation cascade and cleared within a weekend, while this year’s decline took months. XRP now trades below that $1.64 panic low, and it got there without a single crash day—just a slow grind lower through spring.
This matters a lot because slow capitulation tends to behave differently from forced selling: a liquidation flush removes sellers in hours and leaves a vacuum for the price to snap back into, while investors that walk away over months due to low market sentiment have no mechanical reason to rush back in.
That said, Santiment’s report pointed out that the building hasn’t stopped. Stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger just hit a $770 million all-time high while liquidity shrinks across most of the market. Ripple also expanded its Bitso partnership this week to bring MXNB, a Mexican-peso stablecoin, onto the ledger as part of its Latin America payments push. Even the XRP ETF flows have stayed positive on days Bitcoin funds bled.
On top of that, XRP’s monthly RSI, a long-term measure of how oversold the token is, just fell to a record low, and it has only reached this zone a handful of times in 13 years, with a major rally following each one, though sometimes only after a long wait. That means sellers currently look exhausted on two separate gauges at once, while the activity on the ledger keeps growing. So, the only thing missing is buyers who want back in.
Is XRP About to Bounce?
A bounce looks like the more likely outcome from here. Sentiment is about as negative as it gets, and XRP has rallied from exactly this condition before. But the same history is a warning: the last bounce unwound completely, so a rally alone wouldn’t prove the bottom is in.
A lasting bottom would take new demand, not just exhausted sellers, and the likeliest source of it is the CLARITY Act. More than 200 crypto firms, Ripple and Coinbase among them, pressed Senate leadership this week for a floor vote on the CLARITY Act, which would write XRP’s commodity status into law rather than leaving it to regulators.
The odds of the bill becoming law this year are no better than a coin flip and roughly eight weeks remain before the August recess. Two things worth watching are whether the $1 support holds and whether that Senate floor vote gets a date. Sentiment this low means it wouldn’t take much buying to move the XRP price, but the rally would probably need that bill to become law before it sticks.
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