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Ahmed Barakat
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XRP has moved from under $1 to around $1.50 in less than two weeks, crowding news headlines with its rally. Now, is it time to bank gains into strength, or keep full exposure to a trade that is increasingly running on leverage rather than fresh spot demand?
XRP briefly touched $1.69 on August 22 before retreating toward the $1.50–$1.53 range. By August 23, the token was at $1.48, up 47.77% over seven days, with a market cap of $92.95 billion and $22.45 billion in daily volume.
The rally is also riding a strong market backdrop. Bitcoin climbed from $62K to $77K over the same window, while the crypto Fear & Greed Index reached 67, classified as Greed. XRP has simply moved much faster, with spot ETF inflows adding another layer of demand.
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The Overbought Signal and a Long Heavy Derivatives Book
Spot XRP ETFs recorded $18.38 million in net inflows on August 21, with Bitwise accounting for about $16.89 million. Weekly inflows approached $40 million, reportedly the strongest week for XRP ETFs since May. Cumulative net inflows are near $1.55 billion.
That gives XRP a legitimate spot demand story. The problem is that tens of millions in weekly ETF inflows remain small compared with a market cap above $90 billion. The rally, therefore, appears to be getting help from both real demand and increasingly aggressive derivatives positioning.
The technical picture adds another warning. One widely cited reading placed daily RSI near 85.4, deep into overbought territory, while other estimates put it between 70 and 83. Neither guarantees a reversal, but both show how far XRP has moved in a very short period.
Leverage tells the more concerning story. XRP futures open interest jumped 34.49%, or roughly $939 million, to about $3.66 billion over seven days. Binance positioning data showed 72.1% of accounts long versus 27.9% short.
That is a crowded trade. Twenty-four-hour liquidations reached $70.74 million, with longs accounting for $54.68 million, or 77.3% of the total. Three-day liquidations reached $145.15 million, while the largest single wipeout hit $50.27 million on August 22.
Funding also remained positive at 0.01% every four hours, equivalent to an annualized rate near 24.94%. Longs are still paying a premium to stay in the trade even after taking heavy losses.
Short covering helped fuel the earlier move, too. At present, roughly $2.2 million in short positions are at risk as XRP pushed through $1.40 to $1.50. But forced short covering is less durable than unleveraged spot buying.
That makes taking some profit increasingly reasonable. A 20% to 30% trim around current levels would lock in part of the gain while retaining exposure to a possible move toward $1.65 to $1.70 and potentially $2.
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Forget The News, XRP Still Has a Structural Bull Case
The bullish case is not purely technical noise. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse joined the inaugural meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee alongside representatives from major financial institutions. He described the group as an “Olympic roster of crypto.”
That is notable for XRP, which spent years fighting an SEC enforcement action. Still, the committee seat is a policy forum role, not a court ruling or formal legal classification. The SEC’s new “Regulation Crypto Assets” proposal also does not settle the separate Ripple case.
The CLARITY Act remains another major variable. The legislation could classify XRP as a digital commodity under CFTC oversight, but political momentum does not guarantee passage. That uncertainty leaves the rally exposed to disappointment if expectations run ahead of reality.
RLUSD adds to the Ripple ecosystem story, with its market cap growing to roughly $2.1 billion from about $1.5 billion at the start of the year. However, apart from the news, this does not prove direct demand for XRP because the two assets serve different functions.
However, after a 50% rally in less than two weeks, taking something off the table is not the same as turning bearish. It simply means keeping exposure to the upside while making sure the market does not take back gains that are already there.
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