Open interest across all XRP Ledger derivatives currently reads 912.8M, a fraction of the roughly 3.9B peak this chart hit in September 2025. Price sits at $1.3, down from highs above $3 during that same stretch.

The relationship between these two lines has shifted depending on the period. Through most of 2024, open interest tracked price closely but at a much smaller scale, both grinding sideways before the late 2024 breakout. Once price broke above $2 in November 2024, open interest exploded alongside it, hitting a first major peak near 3.9B in January 2025, pulled back hard, then spiked again to its all time high just under 4B in September 2025, right as price made a secondary attempt near $3.70.

What happened after that September peak is the part worth sitting with. Open interest collapsed from nearly 4B toward 1B within a few months, a far steeper decline than price, which fell from around $3.20 to $1.80, roughly 44%, while open interest fell closer to 75%. Leverage unwound considerably faster than spot price itself, consistent with forced deleveraging rather than price simply drifting lower.

Since early 2026, both lines have largely stabilized at much lower levels, open interest oscillating in a tight 600M to 1.3B band while price chopped between $1.80 and $2.50 before the recent pullback toward $1.30.

My honest read: the scale of leverage currently in this market is a small fraction of what existed a year ago, even with price also down substantially. Lower price and proportionally even lower open interest together suggest this market is carrying meaningfully less leveraged risk than it did at last year's peak, less fuel for a sharp move either way.

What I'm watching: whether open interest starts rebuilding meaningfully from these depressed levels as any price recovery develops, or whether it stays this subdued even if price pushes higher.

Written by R3N