XRP sentiment has fallen to its lowest level since October 2025, with the token down roughly 22% over the past month. According to Santiment, the decline is attributed to more than just price movement, as traders have grown fatigued by the lack of major catalysts despite years of anticipation around Ripple's legal clarity and institutional adoption. The weighted sentiment metric, which combines the ratio of positive to negative posts with volume of commentary, hit minus 0.908 on Thursday, marking the weakest reading this year. However, this contrarian sentiment pattern may be supporting XRP's underlying fundamentals, as some of XRP's strongest historical moves have occurred when sentiment was deeply negative. The exhaustion has a history, with Santiment noting that some of XRP's strongest rebounds came when the crowd was at its most disinterested, with discussion volume falling and commentary overwhelmingly negative.
Despite the bearish sentiment, XRP holders are demonstrating strong accumulation behavior through the recent price correction. As reported by Santiment, XRP hodler net position change rose from approximately 144 million XRP on May 12 to roughly 262 million on June 11, with only a minor dip in late May before holding firm through June. These are wallets that have held XRP for at least 155 days, representing the mid-to-long-term holder cohort. This accumulation into weakness mirrors the sentiment crowd, with supply tightening as committed holders buy while casual traders capitulate. The trend suggests that once most traders have already sold or given up, the selling pressure that drives price down is largely spent.
Leverage positioning on Binance shows a significant imbalance that could trigger a short squeeze if XRP rises to key resistance levels. According to Santiment, cumulative short liquidation leverage over 30 days sits near $106.72 million, well above the $57.95 million stacked on the long side, with shorts being over 84% higher than longs. A large cluster of short positions rests near $1.18, with more stacked toward $1.24. If XRP rises into these levels, the forced buying to close short positions could cascade price higher in a short squeeze. This setup bridges the gap between accumulation and a potential move higher, with the price chart showing whether the structure supports the bullish scenario.
XRP trades near $1.13 on the 8-hour chart, where it has carved an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern since early June. As per Santiment, the bullish case projects a roughly 13% move toward $1.34 if XRP breaks above the neckline near $1.19. Buying volume has risen since June 11 while selling volume faded since June 10, supporting the setup. The bearish case involves falling below key support levels, with a break under $1.11 exposing $1.08, and a fall below $1.04 invalidating the entire pattern. The $1.19 neckline separates a squeeze-driven run toward $1.34 from a breakdown that voids the bottoming pattern, making it the critical level to watch for determining XRP's next directional move. XRP traded at $1.14 on Friday, up 2.3% on the day, but remains down sharply from January levels above $2.40 and roughly 69% below its July high.
Despite the negative sentiment, XRP's on-chain activity has reached record levels while the token's price continues to decline. According to Santiment, payment counts, automated market making activity and tokenized real-world assets all hit records this year on the XRP Ledger blockchain, even as the token's price kept falling. Pilot projects have kept stacking up, including one that had Ondo, JPMorgan's Kinexys, Mastercard and Ripple settling tokenized Treasuries across the ledger in seconds. The same discrepancy shows up in institutional adoption, with Standard Chartered projecting $4 billion to $8 billion in additional inflows into U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded funds if the Clarity Act passes. They have attracted roughly $1.4 billion since January, according to SoSoValue data. This activity gap continues to provide a stronger underlying market structure even as sentiment remains weak.
