Summary
⚈ Despite declines, XRP’s long/short ratio remains near 1-month highs, signaling optimism.
⚈ Ripple v. SEC case conclusion could trigger a market-wide boost for XRP.
XRP’s open interest has seen a marked decline since the token dropped below $2.20 in the opening days of May.
On April 28, the number of open XRP derivatives positions reached a 1-month high of 1.52 billion. By May 6, the cryptocurrency’s open interest had declined to 1.37 billion per data retrieved by Finbold from market intelligence platform CryptoQuant, indicating a greatly lessened degree of speculative betting on the part of traders.
In the same timeframe, the price of XRP declined from $2.26 to $2.14 — a 5.3% drop. By press time on May 7, the token’s price had further declined to $2.13, bringing XRP year-to-date (YTD) returns down to just 2.58%.
However, in contrast with these bearish developments, there are a few factors at play that suggest XRP prices could soon rebound.
Despite low XRP open interest, a significant percentage of traders remain bullish
While derivatives positions have declined on the whole, it should be noted that XRP’s long/short ratio remains close to 1-month highs, which demonstrates a healthy dose of bullish sentiment. Moreover, whales have quietly continued with their acquisitions — having bought 900 million tokens in April alone.
In addition, Ripple Labs reiterated the importance of the conclusion of the Ripple v. SEC case in its Q1 2025 XRP markets report. Although the case will, most likely, formally conclude in October at the earliest, the new set of regulations that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to issue in tandem with the matter’s closing could provide a market-wide boost — one that XRP would most likely see the greatest benefit from.
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