1. Price critical point: The battleground of bulls and bears at $3.18
As of the first week of September 2025, XRP has formed a subtle balance around the price center of $2.99, while the $3.18 level is becoming a strategic stronghold for both bulls and bears. According to real-time monitoring by crypto data analysis platform Glassnode, the scale of short positions accumulated above this price level has reached $4.23 billion, a surge of 37% compared to last month, with high-risk shorts with leverage exceeding 5 times accounting for 61%, marking a peak since the Ripple lawsuit victory in 2024.
Market structure shows that over the past 15 trading days, XRP's turnover rate in the $2.8-$3.2 range has reached 187%, with an average daily trading volume stabilizing at around $12 billion. Particularly, on September 5, a 'spike event' occurred where the price briefly touched $3.21 before retreating, leading to the liquidation of short positions worth $870 million. Analysts view this anomaly as a signal of a tentative attack by bulls.
From a technical perspective, $3.18 is not only where the 200-day moving average is located, but also the lower edge of the dense trading area formed in Q4 2024. Data from the order book of the crypto trading platform Kraken shows that there are a total of $1.5 billion in limit sell orders at this price level, forming a technical resistance wall. However, at the same time, buying power below $3 is accumulating, with institutional-level buy orders on Coinbase accumulating to $2.2 billion in the $2.9-3.0 range.
2. Accelerated institutional layout: the advancement path from futures to ETFs
James Seyffart, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, pointed out in an industry report on September 7 that the XRP derivatives market is showing institutional characteristics with "increasing volume and price." Data shows that the open interest of XRP futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has surpassed $3 billion, which is 47% higher than the scale at the time of Solana futures listing in June, with the proportion of institutional clients rising from 19% at the beginning of the year to the current 34%.
The actions in the European market have become more aggressive. Since September, two new XRP ETP products have been added to the Xetra platform under the German Stock Exchange, with an asset management scale of 420 million euros as of September 8, and the daily trading volume has exceeded 50 million euros. The private banking division of Société Générale has incorporated these two ETPs into its digital asset allocation model, becoming the first systemic bank in the eurozone to publicly allocate XRP-related products.
Regarding the market's attention on the progress of the XRP ETF, Seyffart revealed that three asset management companies have currently submitted "physical delivery type" XRP ETF applications to the U.S. SEC, with the application documents for products under Grayscale having entered the "substantive review stage." Compared to existing ETPs, the ETF model has advantages in tax treatment and redemption efficiency; it is estimated that if approved, it could attract about $15-20 billion in institutional capital inflow initially.
3. Ecological landing deepens: large-scale verification of payment scenarios
Ripple's global payment network currently covers 138 financial institutions in 56 countries, with a total cross-border payment amount of $87 billion processed in Q2 2025, a year-on-year increase of 29%. Notably, the application in the ASEAN region is particularly significant: Union Bank of the Philippines has reduced the remittance cost from USD to Philippine Peso from 3.2% to 0.8% by accessing RippleNet, and the processing time has been compressed from 48 hours to 3 minutes. This cooperative model has been replicated by five institutions, including Malaysia's CIMB Bank.
In terms of regulatory compliance, XRP recently obtained a "temporary financial promotion license" from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), becoming the first non-mainstream cryptocurrency to pass this qualification review. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) also defined XRP as a "payment tool with practical functionality" in its updated digital asset classification guidelines in September, clearing key barriers for local institutional investment.
4. The market outlook is a coexistence of risks and opportunities
The current market is at a critical juncture intertwined with multiple variables. From the perspective of the trigger conditions for a short squeeze, if XRP can maintain above $3.18 for three consecutive trading days and its daily trading volume exceeds $20 billion, the technical aspect will form a "cup and handle" breakout, potentially triggering automatic buy orders from algorithmic trading systems, combined with short covering demand, which may push the price to test the $4 mark in the short term.
However, it should be noted that the classification of crypto assets by the U.S. SEC remains uncertain. In the (Draft Regulatory Framework for Digital Assets) released on September 6, XRP is still categorized as an asset class "pending clarification of securities attributes," which may become a potential barrier for large-scale institutional capital entry.
Overall, XRP is in a critical period of transformation from a "speculative target" to a "practical asset." With the continuous deployment of the Ripple payment network and the improvement of institutional product systems, its valuation logic is gradually aligning with traditional financial assets. The battle around $3.18 may become an important catalyst in this transformation process.
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