XRP open interest on Binance has fallen 15.3 percent from its recent six-month high, but the price has limited its decline to the 5 percent range.

The Crypto Basic, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Oct. 1 that the XRP market has shown signs of cooling in overheated derivatives positions without a sharp price drop.

CryptoQuant Quicktake data showed Binance XRP open interest stood at $521.5 million on Sept. 29. That was down from a recent six-month high of $616.1 million recorded on Sept. 22. XRP closed at $1.490 the same day.

Liquidation patterns also shifted. On Sept. 21, when XRP rose above $1.50, short liquidations totaled $13.7 million, the largest in the past six months. After the price hit a peak, pressure shifted toward leveraged long positions. From Sept. 24 to 29, long liquidations averaged $3.72 million a day, about 2.6 times the six-month daily average of $1.43 million. Long liquidations also totaled $8.43 million on Sept. 23 and $5.66 million on Sept. 28.

Other Binance derivatives indicators also pointed the same way. The estimated leverage ratio fell to 0.197 from 0.230 at the Sept. 22 peak, and the funding rate eased to about 0.005 from about 0.010.

Leverage cannot be seen as fully normalised. The current 0.197 still exceeds the six-month average of 0.169. Compared with an earlier phase when Binance XRP open interest was $477.1 million and the leverage ratio was 0.181, the data also show how quickly leverage built up into the Sept. 22 peak.

Spot data sent a different signal. Binance's XRP holdings were estimated at about 2.68 billion XRP on a seven-day average. That was 2.4 percent above the 90-day baseline of about 2.62 billion XRP. Over the same period, XRP Ledger transaction counts averaged 1.96 million a day, up 23 percent from the previous week.

A rise in exchange holdings alone cannot be taken as proof of preparations to sell. It may indicate more XRP is concentrated on Binance, but it is not evidence that holders have actually sold. Also, inflow data for Binance were missing for four of the past 14 days and were excluded from comparisons of weekly fund flows.

The clearest change in this stretch is the reduction in derivatives positions. Open interest, funding rates and leverage all fell from their peaks, but the XRP price held on to most of its Sept. 22 level. Still, with leverage above the six-month average and XRP holdings on Binance above the 90-day baseline, it is difficult to conclude from the data alone whether the next move will be higher or lower.

XRP Binance Open Interest Falls 15.3% From Its Six-Month High “For now, the clearest reading is that XRP shed leverage while price held most of its gains.” – By @CryptoOnchain pic.twitter.com/HsZlH8kvbR