XRP Flushes Its Leverage, Now ETF Demand Has to Prove Itself
The tl;dr
XRP's late-June washout has cleared the speculative leverage out of the market, and that changes what the next move depends on. The token slid to around $1.02 on June 25 as long positions were liquidated, and futures open interest collapsed from roughly $1.3 billion to under $150 million, a multi-month low. With the crowded, leveraged sellers gone, downside pressure eases, but the rebound now rests on real buyers rather than traders. Network activity and spot ETF inflows have improved, yet broader spot-market demand has not shown up, leaving XRP holding near $1 with its recovery hinging on whether that demand finally arrives.
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30-day · delayedKey points
- XRP's June washout flushed out speculative leverage: the token fell to about $1.02 on June 25 as long positions were liquidated, and futures open interest collapsed from roughly $1.3 billion to under $150 million.
- That reset removes the weakly positioned leveraged sellers, which typically takes some pressure off the downside and lowers the risk of another liquidation cascade.
- Fundamentals have firmed: daily active addresses jumped about 72% since mid-June (from roughly 23,000 to nearly 39,500), and spot XRP ETFs drew $15.34 million of inflows on June 29 despite weak broader crypto sentiment.
- Spot ETFs took in a net 4.82 million XRP in week 26, lifting total ETF holdings almost 10% to 938.73 million XRP, roughly 1% of circulating supply, even as the dollar value of those holdings slipped from over $1 billion to about $989 million as the price fell.
- With leverage gone, the recovery now depends on spot buyers and ETF creations, not crowded futures, and so far institutional accumulation has not been matched by broader spot demand; XRP sits near $1 with resistance at $1.08 to $1.10.
By the numbers
XRP’s late-June selloff did something that, in the long run, tends to help: it wrung the speculative leverage out of the market. The token slid to around $1.02 on June 25 as a wave of long liquidations hit, and futures open interest, the total value of outstanding leveraged bets, collapsed from roughly $1.3 billion to under $150 million, a multi-month low. When that much borrowed positioning is purged, the weakest hands are gone, and the market usually gets some relief on the downside because there is simply less fuel left for another forced-selling cascade.
At the same time, the underlying signals have quietly improved. Activity on the network picked up, with daily active addresses climbing about 72% since mid-June, from roughly 23,000 to nearly 39,500 by late in the month. Institutional demand held up too: spot XRP ETFs pulled in $15.34 million of inflows on June 29 even as broader crypto sentiment stayed soft, and over the week they took in a net 4.82 million XRP, lifting total ETF holdings almost 10% to 938.73 million XRP, roughly 1% of the circulating supply. On paper, that is a token being quietly accumulated by the very buyers the market spent 2025 waiting for.
The catch is what the reset leaves behind. With the leverage gone, the next leg no longer runs on crowded futures, it runs on real demand, meaning spot buyers and fresh ETF creations. And so far, that broader demand has not arrived: the ETFs keep accumulating, but the wider spot market has stayed on the sidelines, and the dollar value of those ETF holdings actually slipped from over $1 billion to about $989 million as the price drifted lower. XRP is holding near $1 with resistance up at $1.08 to $1.10, and a durable recovery depends on spot demand finally showing up to match the institutional flows. In other words, the leverage story is finished, and now the demand story has to prove itself.
A leverage flush is usually a healthy thing, but it hands the next move to genuine buyers rather than traders chasing momentum with borrowed money. For XRP, the derivatives-driven froth is gone, so the price from here reflects whether real, spot-level demand actually shows up. That makes for a cleaner setup with less crash risk, but also a clear test: if steady ETF inflows cannot pull in the broader market, the token just drifts, whereas if spot demand returns, the reset becomes a base to build on. It is a neat microcosm of the post-ETF era for altcoins, where the question has shifted from whether a fund will launch to whether there is real demand behind it.
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