XRP Exchange Reserves Hit 11.81B, A One-Year High Zone

Exchanges are holding more XRP than at almost any point in the past year. A CryptoQuant analyst who posts as CryptoOnchain reports that XRP exchange reserves stood at 11.81 billion XRP on October 17. That puts the figure in the 99th percentile of the past 365 days, according to the quicktake published on October 18.

What the XRP exchange reserves figure says

The author's point is that the build-up is uneven. Binance holds 2.67 billion XRP, which sits near the 30th percentile of its own year. So most of the extra balance appears to be on other venues. By our arithmetic Binance accounts for about 23% of the 11.81 billion, a modest share for the largest exchange.

The top panel plots total XRP exchange reserves against price, with a line at the one-year 99th percentile, 11.798 billion. Source: CryptoQuant quicktake by CryptoOnchain.

The XRP exchange reserves total therefore reflects balances elsewhere. Binance itself still saw coins arriving. Netflow averaged about 9.3 million XRP a day over the past week, with inflows of 22 million and 29 million on October 13 and 14. Over the same week, the author counts tokens transferred down 37% and volume from large holders down 44%.

Leverage came out faster on Binance

On the derivatives side the author describes a reset. Binance XRP open interest closed at $453.0 million on October 17, down 15.8% from $538.1 million on October 4. Long liquidations came to $25.7 million on October 7 and 8, the biggest two-day cluster in two weeks.

The leverage ratio on the exchange fell from 0.205 to 0.170. Funding was negative on six of the last eleven days, in the author's count.

Our own check of Binance's XRPUSDT market lands in the same direction with different numbers. Open interest there was about $402 million at the October 17 daily snapshot against $464 million on October 4, a drop of roughly 13%. Funding for that contract printed below zero in 15 of its 33 settlements since October 9.

XRP price over the same stretch

Binance daily closes show XRP at $1.5206 on October 4 and $1.2941 on October 17, a fall of about 15%. That matches the quicktake's $1.52 to $1.29. The October 19 candle was trading near $1.30 on Binance at the time of writing.

The author says conditions like these have often come before range-bound trading. The next move, in this reading, depends on whether the extra supply is sold or pulled off exchanges. In the analyst's words, leverage has reset faster than exchange supply has.

Limits of exchange reserve data

Reserve numbers count tokens that sit at exchanges. They do not tell you why the tokens are there. Different data providers also measure open interest differently, which is why the author's and our figures do not match.

This article relays one analyst's published data and a partial check of it. It is not a prediction. For price levels on the same coin, see our XRP chart analysis, and nothing here is a suggestion to buy or sell XRP.