XRP Funding Rate Stays Negative On Binance, Lowest Since August

XRP funding rate on Binance has stayed negative for seven straight settlements, from October 7 at 00:00 UTC through October 9 at 00:00 UTC. A CryptoQuant Quicktake by Arab Chain put the reading at about minus 0.0055% and called it the lowest since mid-August. Binance's own history for the XRPUSDT contract agrees on the timing, and the latest print is deeper.

Arab Chain's chart of XRP funding rates on Binance across all symbols, from the CryptoQuant Quicktake.

How the XRP funding rate slid

Funding on XRPUSDT sat at the exchange's positive baseline of 0.01% through October 6 at 16:00 UTC. The next settlement, at midnight on October 7, printed minus 0.0012%. Then came minus 0.0058% eight hours later, and minus 0.0065% at midnight on October 8.

The most recent funding print, at 00:00 UTC on October 9, was minus 0.0167%. That is the lowest since August 15, when the contract printed minus 0.0189%. The Quicktake's figure comes from an all-symbol average, which is why it reads shallower than the single contract.

Price and open interest around the XRP funding rate

XRP closed at $1.4971 on October 6 and at $1.3805 on October 8, a drop of 7.8%, after a low of $1.3189 that day. It traded near $1.40 on the morning of October 9, on Binance spot data.

Positions shrank at the same time. Open interest on XRPUSDT fell from 321.4 million XRP on October 8 to 295.5 million on October 9, down 8.1%. In dollars it went from about $457 million to $408 million. Traders closing contracts can account for a lot of that decline, so it does not say whether the shorts or the longs gave up more.

Who is positioned where

Binance's global long-short account ratio for XRPUSDT climbed from 2.31 on October 7 to 2.75 a day later. On October 9 it read 2.65, meaning about two and a half accounts were long for each one short. Funding turned negative anyway. That can mean fewer but larger short positions, or long accounts that are small in size.

Account ratios count heads and not dollars, so the funding print is the better read of where the money sits. When it is negative, shorts pay longs at every settlement, which is a running cost for the short side.

How rare is a negative XRP funding rate

Not very. Since June 1, Binance's XRPUSDT history shows 151 negative prints out of 391, about 39%. The longest unbroken run was 16 settlements starting June 4, so a stretch of seven is nowhere near a record.

Depth is the unusual part. The October 9 print ranks second since June 1, behind only the August 15 reading. Negative funding has come and gone repeatedly this summer, and each stretch ended with the rate crossing back above zero at some point before the next began.

What would change the picture

Arab Chain's note flags a squeeze risk. Heavy short positioning can force buybacks if the price lifts, and negative funding has flipped back to positive within days before. Binance's projected rate for the next settlement stood near minus 0.0064% on the morning of October 9, so the streak looked set to reach eight.

This report covers derivatives data only. It is not advice to buy, sell or short XRP, and the next Binance settlement lands at 08:00 UTC.