XRP Futures Surge Past Solana: Can a $3.28B Unlock Derail the Rally to $3.50?

XRP futures volume just flipped Solana—bulls are charging toward $3.50, but a $3.28 billion token unlock looms. Is this the classic 'buy the rumor, sell the news' setup, or will the unlock trigger a sell-off? Traders are sweating, and the market’s about to decide who’s overleveraged.

Meanwhile, institutional players are quietly stacking positions, betting the unlock gets absorbed like a Wall Street 'fee adjustment'—because nothing says 'decentralized finance' like whales moving in silence.

Key Takeaways

XRP saw Futures volume and Open Interest spike, boosting the market’s bullish sentiment. And yet, a multi-billion-dollar escrow unlock to unknown wallets could inject selling pressure, leaving traders cautious about a sustained upside on the charts.

On 10 August, XRP closed at a value of $3.1879 on the charts, down 3.8% in just 24 hours. This pullback followed a brief rally after news broke out that the SEC was dropping its case against Ripple Labs.

And yet, institutional activity has remained high, with Remittix’s $18.5 million bounty aimed at overhauling its payment systems.

Thanks to the same, at the time of writing, XRP’s price seemed to be flashing both bullish and bearish signals – A sign of traders being cautious.

Futures frenzy boosts bullish camp

XRP’s 24-hour Futures volume surged by 207.74% to $12.4 billion, outpacing Solana’s $9.6 billion.

Open Interest climbed by 15.02% to $5.9 billion, above Dogecoin [DOGE], ethereum [ETH], Solana [SOL], and Toncoin [TON] – All of which held over $1 billion, but trailed XRP’s growth.

Source: Cas Abbe/X

Funding Rates turned positive too, signaling that buyers may be paying shorts to keep positions open.

Owing to this momentum, XRP emerged as the third-highest in the list of cryptos with the highest 24-hour liquidations, excluding stablecoins.

High leveraged orders at risk

As expected, these bullish signals put about $150 million worth of high Leveraged shorts at the risk of liquidation. And, these orders were placed between the $3.27 and $3.37 levels.

In the event that the price respects bulls’ control, a run on these shorts could result in a short squeeze. This could see the price of XRP breach the $3.50-level on the charts.

Source: CoinGlass

Fewer positions were clustered below press time levels – A sign that traders favored upside bets. However, their scale appeared to be far smaller than the sell-side orders overhead.

Escrow unlocks threaten supply shock

On 9 August, more than $3.28 billion in XRP was unlocked from escrow. This unlock was split into transaction batches of $1.64 billion, $328 million, and $1.32 billion, as per Whale Alert.

The release to unknown wallets risks adding selling pressure by expanding the circulating supply.

Historically, such events have weighed on XRP’s price, especially when demand fails to match the inflows.

Source: X

At press time, while bullish metrics seemed to outweigh bearish cues, the scale of the escrow unlock injected some uncertainty in the market.

Hence, traders may prefer waiting for a clearer breakout or breakdown before committing to large positions.