XRP has been consolidating since early February, building a base that has tested the patience of bulls who have been waiting for a decisive move to higher levels. The market has reached a pivotal moment — and a CryptoQuant report identifies a structural split in the data that changes how we should interpret the current consolidation. Related Reading: Retail Is Cashing Out On Ethereum, But The Selloff Is Being Absorbed. Discover Who Is Buying The report reveals a divergence that cuts through the surface noise. XRP’s spot market and futures market are currently telling contradictory stories. Across centralized exchanges, spot buying has been strengthening continuously — the All CEX Estimated Spot CVD has risen from $1.08 billion on April 2 to $1.39 billion by April 24, a $310 million increase in real, underlying demand over three weeks. Actual coins are changing hands, and the buyers are winning the order flow. The futures market on Binance is pointing in the opposite direction. Perpetual traders have remained on the bearish side throughout this period. Maintaining net short positioning that creates the appearance of a market lacking conviction. The analysis argues that appearance is misleading. The futures weakness does not reflect an absence of real demand — it reflects a derivatives reset, a clearing of leveraged long excess that was accumulated during previous rallies. Beneath that reset, spot buyers have been quietly absorbing supply the entire time. The divergence is the signal. Which side of it proves correct is the question the next directional move will answer. The Futures Market Is Not Bearish. It Is Being Cleaned. The scale of the futures divergence gives the current setup its structural definition. While spot CVD has climbed $310 million to the positive side, Binance Perpetual CVD has moved in the opposite direction with almost identical force — dropping from -$65 million on March 19 to approximately -$392 million by April 24, a deepening of net selling pressure by roughly $327 million. Two forces of nearly equal magnitude are pulling in opposite directions simultaneously. The perpetual data requires careful interpretation. Futures net selling of this scale can mean one of two things: genuine bearish conviction from informed participants, or a mechanical clearing of excess leverage from a market that had accumulated too many crowded longs. The liquidation data since April 18 clarifies which is happening. Long liquidations have dominated XRP’s derivatives activity — forced exits from overleveraged positions rather than deliberate short-side bets against the asset. That distinction changes everything. Each long liquidation removes a fragile position from the market and replaces it with a more stable price structure. The fresh short positioning that followed is contributing to funding rates normalizing toward neutral, which is precisely what a healthy derivatives reset looks like before a market attempts to move higher. What the CryptoQuant report describes is not a market under sustained bearish assault. It is a market conducting the internal cleanup that typically precedes the next directional leg. Spot buyers are absorbing supply on one side. Derivatives are flushing excess leverage on the other. When both processes complete, the structure that remains tends to be considerably more durable than the one that existed before the reset began. Related Reading: DeFi Just Lost $15 Billion in Three Days. Something Deeper Than a Hack Is Behind It XRP Holds Range Support as Market Compresses Toward Decision Point XRP continues to consolidate around the $1.40 level, with price action reflecting a prolonged equilibrium following the sharp February breakdown. The chart shows a clear shift from trending behavior to range-bound structure, with XRP holding between roughly $1.30 support and $1.50 resistance for several weeks. This compression phase suggests that both buyers and sellers are absorbing liquidity without establishing directional control. The recent bounce from the $1.30–$1.35 zone is technically relevant. That area has acted as a consistent demand region, with multiple tests holding despite broader market volatility. The formation of slightly higher lows since mid-March indicates early accumulation, though not yet strong enough to break the broader downtrend. Related Reading: Another $142M Staked – Bitmine Tightens Its Grip on Ethereum Supply Overhead, resistance remains well-defined. The 50-day and 100-day moving averages are both trending downward and converging near the $1.50–$1.60 region, creating a dynamic ceiling that has rejected recent upside attempts. Until XRP reclaims this zone, the structure remains neutral-to-bearish on higher timeframes. Volume has declined throughout the consolidation, reinforcing the idea of a market waiting for a catalyst. A breakout above $1.50 would likely trigger expansion toward $1.70. Failure to hold $1.30, however, would expose XRP to a deeper retrace toward the $1.10 region. Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com
