XRP just reclaimed a ranking it hadn’t held in weeks, and the derivatives market suggests traders are positioning for more.
The token surged to $1.53 on Tuesday, up 11% over the week, overtaking BNB to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at $93.4 billion. According to CoinDesk analytics, the move broke through the $1.40 resistance as trading volume exploded 125% to $3.22 billion.
Data from Coinglass shows that XRP open interest on Binance climbed to 353.49 million XRP as of March 17, up from 222.79 million on October 24, 2025, when XRP was trading at $2.39. This represents a 59% increase in open interest while the price is 37% lower. The new leveraged positions are contributing to the rally rather than unwinding, which is a fundamentally different pattern from the deleveraging that dominated January and February.
The Binance OI chart shows the full arc. Open interest peaked above 400 million XRP in September 2025, collapsed during the October crash that sent the price from $3.65 to below $2, and spent the next four months slowly rebuilding.
The current 353 million is approaching but has not yet reached pre-crash levels, meaning the market has room to add leverage before reaching the concentration that preceded the last wipeout.
Traders will now likely be watching to see if the $1.50 to $1.60 area holds or becomes another failed breakout in a token that has been teeming with them since October. The open interest in the move gives it more structural support than previous attempts, but XRP approaching pre-crash leverage levels at 58% below the pre-crash price is a setup that works until it doesn’t.
