XRP Leverage Dries Up on Binance as Selling Pressure Builds

Something quite curious is happening around XRP. On Binance, a large part of the leverage accumulated in recent weeks is disappearing. On spot, sellers continue to push. And at the same time, UNI, NEAR, or HYPE are suddenly gaining height. The crypto market thus offers two almost opposite images. The data published by Amr Taha at CryptoQuant help to better understand the first: on XRP, traders close their positions much faster than the price declines.

XRP traders are cutting leverage fast on Binance

Let’s start with CryptoQuant’s numbers. On August 22, XRP’s open interest on Binance was around 323 million dollars. On September 17, only 219 million remained. Nearly one-third vanished in less than four weeks.

The price itself lost about 11% over the period.

This gap deserves more attention than the decline alone. Open interest sums the still open derivative positions: when it decreases, more positions close than open. However, a small rebound occurred in early September. On the 6th, the indicator rose around 244 million dollars. It did not hold.

Spot tells an even less comfortable story. The estimated CVD on centralized exchanges went from -111 million to -2.1 billion dollars. This indicator roughly measures who hits the market harder: buyers or sellers. Here, it is clearly the latter.

On Binance perpetuals, the CVD went from -361 million to -1 billion. The spot deterioration approaches 2 billion, against 639 million for the perps.

The signal is clear: XRP traders reduce their derivative exposure while aggressive selling remains high on both futures and spot markets.

Amr Taha, CryptoQuant

There remains a paradox: cleansing so much leverage can also make the market less vulnerable to long liquidation cascades. CryptoQuant reminds us of this. Bad photo today, therefore; not necessarily a bad movie tomorrow.

Altcoins are rallying, but not for the same reasons

On September 18, the scene had clearly changed elsewhere. The total market capitalization gained about 2.2% over twenty-four hours to return to 2.66 trillion dollars. FxPro noted no decline among its selection of the forty most liquid cryptos.

And the big performances did not come from the heavyweights.

Depending on the time of the reading, Uniswap gained between 26% and 31%, NEAR between 26% and 30%. Hyperliquid approached 14% at Trending Topics, Zcash exceeded 10%. Bitcoin progressed much more slowly. Its dominance even dropped below 59%, a one-month low.

But putting all these gains into the same basket would be misleading.

UNI benefits from American regulatory openness around trading tokenized stocks on certain permissioned pools, a field where Uniswap v4 had already positioned itself. Hyperliquid benefits from another story: Kraken wants to offer on-chain perpetuals in the United States via Bitnomial, subject to regulatory green light. Zcash received Paradigm’s backing while its community approved reducing blocks from 75 to 25 seconds.

So there is rotation, yes. A tide lifting all altcoins, much less. Even the Altcoin Season Index remains far from the level traditionally associated with a true altseason.

The old altseason playbook is losing its grip

Perhaps this is where the 2026 market differs most from previous cycles.

Previously, the money flow seemed almost mapped out. Bitcoin gained value, part of the gains flowed to major altcoins, then risk appetite pushed capital further down the ranking. This highway now has many more exits.

The figures collected by FXStreet show the extent of the change. Between October 2025 and June 2026, altcoins’ capitalization plunged from 1.49 trillion to 543 billion dollars. Meanwhile, RWAs have built their own market.

Since January 2025, their on-chain AUM has risen from about 4 billion to 34.092 billion dollars. The open interest of perpetuals linked to RWAs now exceeds 15.9 billion. In August alone, these products traded 948.234 billion dollars.

And they are not alone in diverting attention.

Prediction markets have amassed 120.23 billion dollars in volume since January. Launchpads have absurdly multiplied available tokens: Pump.fun accounted for 12.9 million of the 32 million tokens on Solana in October 2025.

That is mainly what an investor can take away from this mutation: counting the altcoins rising is no longer enough. One must look where volumes really circulate, where open interest grows, and which platforms earn revenues.

Hyperliquid generated more than 429 million dollars in revenues since January. This figure probably tells more about the new geography of speculation than a simple index labeled “altseason”.

XRP is nearing a golden cross with a patchy track record

Back to XRP, and this time to the charts.

Its 50-day moving average is about 2% below the 200-day average. If the former crosses the latter, XRP will print a golden cross, a pattern technical analysts commonly associate with the establishment of a bullish trend.

But here’s the thing: XRP already knows this signal very well.

CoinDesk found sixteen golden crosses in its history. None lasted twelve months. All ended by giving way to a death cross.

This record could be enough to throw the indicator in the trash. That would be a bit hasty. Among the ten golden crosses lasting long enough to observe their performance three months later, five produced gains ranging from 85% to more than 1,000%. The one in April 2017 was followed by a 1,009.6% increase. February 2021 gave +135%.

Not really useless. Not really reliable either.

Altcoins have accelerated sharply while major cryptos lag behind.

Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro, quoted by CoinDesk

That’s precisely why the next crossing deserves to be read with other data. XRP arrives with open interest cut by 32%, a very negative Spot CVD, and a market starting to look away from Bitcoin.

The golden cross will give a graphic signal. The flows will say if it has legs.

Five figures to keep an eye on XRP

• The XRP price is quoted at 1.38 dollars at the time of writing, in a market where the recent drop in leverage far exceeds that of the price.
• Open interest on Binance reaches about 219 million dollars, against 323 million on August 22, a contraction close to 32%.
• Estimated Spot CVD reaches -2.1 billion dollars, after losing about 700 million since September 6.
• The 50-day moving average evolves about 2% below the 200-day one, leaving the golden cross close but not yet confirmed.
• Bitcoin dominance fell below 59%, while several altcoins just recorded double-digit daily gains.

The coming months will create winners, laggards, and probably some buyers arriving at the station after the train has already left the platform. Tom Lee foresees an exceptional year for cryptos, with tokenization among the big drivers he monitors. There remains a difficulty as old as markets themselves: being exposed in the right place. XRP has its signals. Capital owes it no loyalty.