XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) has spent the past few weeks pinned to the $1 level, and for investors staring at the chart, there hasn’t been much to feel good about lately. The coin dropped to just above $1 in late June, which is its lowest in more than a year, and every small bounce has faded.
Underneath the XRP price, something else changed dramatically in June. The leverage that dragged XRP down got almost completely wiped out, sending open interest to a one-year low. Through the whole drop, the biggest wallets kept buying, and that combination often shows up right when a market is bottoming out.
So is this a bottom quietly forming, or just more of the same range XRP has been stuck in all year?
What XRP’s 72% Network Activity Jump Shows
Over the first two weeks in June, the number of active addresses on the XRP Ledger jumped about 72%, from around 23,000 to nearly 39,500. After a quiet few weeks on-chain, that looks like the network turning a corner.
But it helps to know what normal looks like for XRP. The XRP ledger usually runs between 30,000 and 50,000 active addresses on any given day, so the jump is a bounce back into its regular range after a slow stretch rather than a fresh breakout. New wallets picked up too, with nearly 5,000 created in a single day, which is the strongest in about three months.
The catch is that a busier network doesn’t automatically mean a higher token price. More active addresses can point to more people using XRP, but the same spike can come from routine wallet movements or short-term hype that never turns into steady buying.
So, the activity tells you the interest is still there, but it can’t reveal where the price goes next. The clearer signal is in the leverage that had been dragging XRP down.
Why XRP’s Open Interest Collapse Matters More
Most of XRP’s slide toward $1 did not come from investors choosing to sell—it came from leverage getting flushed out. Traders who had borrowed to bet on higher prices got forced out as the market dropped.
That flush shows up in the open interest, which is just the total value of leveraged bets riding on XRP at any given moment. It has collapsed from about $1.3 billion to under $150 million, marking its lowest in a year.
The drop also came with a wave of forced selling. Long liquidations—where traders get automatically sold out of losing bets—spiked more than 800% above their normal level, with about $6.7 million wiped out in a single burst. Funding rates also turned negative, which means traders are now paying to bet against XRP rather than for it.
A collapse in leverage helps because the selling that hammered XRP was mechanical. What that means is that with fewer leveraged positions left in the market, there are fewer of those cascading sell-offs where one liquidation sets off the next.
It also means the price is driven more by people actually buying and selling XRP than by borrowed money amplifying every move. And that is a cleaner base to build from, even if it doesn’t lift the price on its own.
Why Whales and Institutions Keep Buying XRP
While smaller holders have been selling into the current drop, the biggest XRP wallets have been doing the opposite. The number of large holders hit record highs through June, even as overall sentiment stayed fearful.
Over a few days in late June, the amount of coins moving off exchanges jumped from about 40 million to roughly 123 million XRP, which usually means holders are pulling coins into private wallets to hold long term rather than sell.
Large wallets now hold roughly 74% of the XRP supply after adding around 1.53 billion tokens over the past six months. When big holders keep buying while everyone else panics, it usually means they are positioning for something the rest of the market hasn’t caught up to yet.
That said, the accumulation could cut both ways. Big holders buying into weakness have sometimes marked past bottoms, yet it can just as easily be long-term holders averaging down on a bet that hasn’t paid off. It is a supportive sign, but not a guarantee that the bottom is in.
The one steadier thread is institutional money, of which spot XRP ETFs just logged their eighth straight week of inflows, pushing their all-time total to around $1.48 billion—even while the price went nowhere.
What XRP Still Needs to Turn the Setup Into a Rally
A good setup and steady buying still leave XRP missing one vital thing: a reason for the price to actually move. Accumulation can quietly build a floor, but floors don’t turn into rallies without a trigger, and right now there isn’t an obvious one on the cards.
The biggest potential catalyst is the CLARITY Act—the bill that would set federal rules for crypto and classify tokens like XRP as commodities. It has cleared a Senate committee and is technically ready for a floor vote. But talks recently broke down over two sticking points—an ethics provision and a fight over developer protections. And with the Senate not back until July 13, the bill has a narrow window to pass before the August recess.
The other lever is Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC). XRP still tends to move in Bitcoin’s direction, only more sharply, so with Bitcoin stuck around $60,000, the pressure from the top is overriding every on-chain positive XRP has going for it. A few analysts have flagged early reversal signals on XRP’s daily chart, though those only hint at a possible bottom rather than confirm one.
The price itself is still in a hole, too. XRP trades below every major moving average right now, with the nearest resistance around $1.11 and the next near $1.20. Until it reclaims those levels, the downtrend is still intact, no matter how good the setup underneath looks.
So Is This XRP’s Bottom, or More of the Same Range?
We think this is the most constructive setup XRP has had in months. But a good setup does not move the price by itself. The cleared-out leverage and the steady buying have built XRP a floor, but turning that floor into a move higher still takes a catalyst, and none is working for XRP just yet
For now, that leaves XRP stuck waiting on Bitcoin and a CLARITY Act vote that keeps slipping—with a stronger base under it than a month ago, but no trigger to move it.
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