XRP is now trading back above $1.40, following a few bullish news around it, especially their recent Middle East expansion and OKX partnership. Derivatives data also shows the calm exterior is concealing a coiled spring, and could hurt short sellers when it unloads. A CryptoQuant analysis highlights a sharp divergence between XRP’s estimated leverage ratio on Binance and its current price level. The leverage ratio has collapsed back to approximately 0.1 levels last seen in late October 2024, when XRP was trading around just $0.50. Although today’s price is nearly three times that, the patterns could repeat. $XRP leverage ratio on Binance has dropped to ~0.1, a historically low level, while price holds near $1.30. Low leverage + elevated price suggests an under-positioned market. If leverage returns, conditions favor a sharp expansion move. pic.twitter.com/C1rGHa3erp — XRP Update (@XrpUdate) May 2, 2026 The last time a similar divergence resolved to the upside, between late June and mid-July 2025, XRP surged from $1.96 to $3.65 as the leverage ratio climbed from below 0.3 to just under 0.6 over four weeks. Discover: The best pre-launch token sales Can XRP Escape Its News Range and Force a Short Squeeze? XRP is currently priced around $1.40, consolidating in a tight band that has held for several sessions. Volume is subdued for now, even as the market shows improvement. But, low-volume consolidation above key support reads differently than low-volume drift lower. Binance’s estimated leverage ratio for XRP sits near 0.1 while price holds well above pre-breakout levels. Excess speculative positioning has already been flushed. What remains is a relatively clean slate for the next directional move. XRP USD, TradingView If leverage begins rebuilding as fresh capital enters, it could drive XRP toward the $2.00 psychological level and potentially retracing toward the mid-2025 highs near $3.65. But if price collapses to match the low-leverage environment, a flush back toward the $1.00–$1.10 area would technically “resolve” the divergence without a squeeze. What is clear is that passive short exposure here carries asymmetric risk. A leverage rebuild could be fast and violent. Discover: The best crypto to diversify your portfolio with Bitcoin Hyper Eyes Early Movers as XRP Builds Pressure For traders watching XRP’s setup and wondering where meaningful upside still exists, without waiting on a decades-old asset to work through its derivatives backlog, the early-stage presale market offers a different risk profile entirely. One project currently drawing attention is Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) , positioned as the first-ever Bitcoin Layer 2 with full Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) integration. The premise is pointed: Bitcoin is slow, expensive, and largely unprogrammable. Bitcoin Hyper targets all three limitations simultaneously while delivering sub-second finality, low-cost execution, smart contract capability, and preserving Bitcoin’s underlying security. The SVM integration is the standout technical claim, with the project asserting performance that rivals (and potentially exceeds) Solana itself. $HYPER is priced at $0.0136 , with $32.5 raised to date. Staking is live with a high 36% APY for early participants. The presale details are available at the Bitcoin Hyper presale page . The post XRP News: Thinking of Shorting XRP? You Might Get Squeezed appeared first on Cryptonews .
