XRP Leverage Hits 7-Month High as $3.4B OI Crowds Longs
XRP (XRP)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
CoinGape reports that XRP’s leverage ratio on Binance climbed to 0.213, a seven-month high reached on August 26. This surge followed a 44% weekly rally that drew fresh leveraged long bets into the derivatives market. Analyst Arab Chain noted the estimated leverage ratio (ELR) compares derivatives open interest against exchange reserves, with the current reading signaling re-risking after a subdued period.
Futures volume hit $6.4 billion in 24 hours, while open interest stood near $3.45 billion with a two-to-one long-to-short ratio. The spike coincided with Binance increasing maximum leverage on XRP from 5x to 10x on August 21. Arab Chain stated that if the ELR continues rising with price, it points toward a $1.50 reclaim and potentially $1.67–$1.70.
Conversely, if the ELR stays elevated while price slips, crowded longs could face a cascade of forced liquidations. Institutional demand remained constructive, with Goldman Sachs and Bank of America boosting their XRP ETF holdings. Ripple also backed a new institutional credit fund using its RLUSD stablecoin, which has reached a $2 billion market cap. The rally was initially sparked by the U.S. Treasury expanding its bond-buyback program, which lowered yields and boosted Bitcoin.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for XRP, measured when this story was written up on 26 August 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio data shows XRP trading at $1.42 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 51.9%, indicating a slight majority of spot volume is buying. The 1-hour buy ratio is 51.1%, while the 4-hour ratio is 48.4%, suggesting buying pressure is stabilizing after a brief dip in the medium term. The 24-hour volume delta is positive at +$8,976,592, meaning net buying has outweighed net selling over the day. However, the 4-hour volume delta is negative at -$553,241, showing that selling pressure has increased in the shorter window. The CVD for the 24-hour close is +$134,926, confirming that cumulative buying has slightly exceeded cumulative selling. This indicates that while spot buyers are active, the momentum is not uniformly strong across all timeframes.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.6% sits at the 83rd percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 48.5% - stronger buying than most days.
Twenty-four hours later
What XRP did over the 23 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for XRP, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 48.9%, making today’s 24-hour ratio of 51.9% an unusual day with +3.0 points more buying than the weekly average. Spot volume today was 0.51x the weekly average, indicating that trading activity is significantly lower than usual for this coin. Despite the lower volume, the price has risen 28.7% over the last 8 days. The 8-day volume delta total is -$61,148,055, showing that net selling has dominated the weekly flow despite the price increase. This suggests that the recent rally has occurred with relatively weak spot participation compared to the broader weekly trend.