Why Is XRP Price Down Today After a 44% Weekly Rally?

Why Is XRP Price Down Today After a 44% Weekly Rally?

Dr. Guneet Kaur

Wed, August 26, 2026 at 12:02 PM GMT+3 6 min read

• XRP-USD +5.53%

Key Takeaways

• XRP fell nearly 5% to around $1.44 after gaining roughly 44% in a week, with the latest decline following another rejection above $1.50.

• Binance's XRP leverage ratio has climbed to its highest level since January, while futures volume is running more than five times spot volume and traders are heavily tilted long.

• The pullback is happening despite nine straight days of XRP ETF inflows, suggesting the immediate weakness stems from profit-taking and an overheated derivatives market rather than from institutions abandoning XRP.

XRP is giving back part of its explosive weekly rally, but the latest decline looks less like the disappearance of demand and more like a market struggling to digest how quickly leverage returned.

XRP traded near $1.44 on Aug. 26, down almost 5% over 24 hours, after briefly trading above $1.50.

The token has remained up roughly 44% over the past seven days, following its rebound from around $1 in mid-August.

Three pieces of data help explain why a token with positive ETF flows and bullish whale positioning is falling anyway.

XRP Leverage Just Hit a Seven-Month High

The most important change is happening in derivatives.

CryptoQuant reported that XRP's estimated leverage ratio on Binance has reached its highest level in more than seven months.

The ratio compares futures open interest with XRP reserves held on the exchange, so a rising reading means traders are building increasingly leveraged exposure relative to available exchange inventory.

CryptoQuant's original interpretation was not necessarily bearish. It said that when higher leverage arrives alongside rising price and open interest, it can show growing confidence and fresh positions entering the market.

That was effectively what happened during XRP's rally.

The problem starts when the price changes direction.

XRP futures open interest now stands at around $3.45 billion, with roughly two Binance accounts long for every one short. Among Binance's top traders, that ratio is closer to three-to-one.

Once a market becomes heavily tilted to the long side, a modest decline can force leveraged buyers to close out. Those forced sales push prices lower, potentially triggering the next group of liquidations.

Around $18.9 million in XRP positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, with approximately $15 million from longs.

The same leverage that accelerated XRP upward can therefore accelerate the correction.

Futures Are Trading More Than Five Times as Much as Spot XRP

There is another unusually large imbalance underneath the rally.

XRP futures generated approximately $6.4 billion in 24-hour trading volume, compared with only around $1.2 billion on spot markets.

That matters because XRP's short-term price is increasingly being driven by leveraged contracts rather than straightforward spot purchases.

During the rally, leverage amplified buying as shorts were forced to cover. Once XRP stopped climbing, that mechanism flipped: traders who entered late with leverage suddenly became potential sellers.

XRP also failed to hold $1.50-$1.55. Binance data showed an intraday high of $1.5505 before the price fell back toward $1.44, with profit-taking appearing around the same level that has repeatedly acted as near-term resistance.

A 44% weekly gain creates a straightforward incentive for holders who bought at around $1 or below to lock in profits.

Surprising Part: XRP ETFs Are Still Buying

The decline is not being accompanied by an obvious collapse in institutional ETF demand.

US spot XRP ETFs recorded another $23.87 million of net inflows on Aug. 25, extending their streak to nine consecutive trading days. Cumulative net inflows have now reached roughly $1.59 billion.

That follows another notable institutional disclosure. Goldman Sachs reported $86.5 million of XRP ETF exposure at the end of Q2, spread across five US-listed funds, after reporting no XRP ETF holdings in Q1.

The positions included Bitwise's XRP ETF, Franklin Templeton's XRPZ, Canary Capital's XRPC, 21Shares' TOXR and Grayscale's GXRP.

The 13F filing does not establish that Goldman is making a directional bet on XRP, since such holdings can reflect client activity, hedging, or market-making.

But alongside continuing ETF inflows, it shows institutional exposure was increasing even before XRP's latest 44% weekly rally.

That makes the current price weakness more interesting. XRP is falling while regulated investment products continue to attract money, and a major Wall Street bank has re-established its ETF exposure.

It also suggests that ETF demand is being outweighed, at least temporarily, by profit-taking and derivatives positioning, rather than by investors broadly exiting the XRP trade.

The earlier rally also left many new buyers sitting on rapid gains. XRP moved from below $1 on Aug. 17 to as high as roughly $1.70 during the run, meaning the market compressed months of potential appreciation into only a few sessions.

What Happens Next for XRP Price?

The next test is less about finding another bullish headline and more about whether leverage can cool without price breaking down further.

A reclaim of $1.50-$1.55 would show buyers are absorbing the supply that stopped the latest attempt higher.

The more dangerous scenario would be XRP falling through roughly $1.40 while open interest and long positioning remain elevated, because that would expose a larger pool of leveraged traders to liquidation.

CryptoQuant's leverage signal therefore cuts both ways.

Rising leverage helped confirm confidence as XRP climbed. After a 44% rally, that same seven-month-high leverage is now one of the biggest reasons an ordinary bout of profit-taking could turn into a much sharper XRP pullback.

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