XRP spot trading activity has collapsed in recent times despite the recent recovery above $1.40, showing reduced interest among spot traders.
However, while the spot market is seeing a decline in volume, futures trading remains strong, and this has led to questions about how much of XRP’s recovery comes from demand in the spot market and how much is influenced by speculative trading.
Specifically, between Aug. 26 and Oct. 11, XRP’s combined spot trading volume across centralized exchanges dropped by $1.943 billion, falling from $2.597 billion to $653.8 million.
For context, these figures represent the seven-day average spot exchange volume, which measures the average daily trading volume over the previous seven days.
Importantly, the indicator covers a full week, which helps to reduce the effect of sudden increases or decreases in daily activity and gives a better idea of the overall trend in trader participation.
XRP Spot Volume Falls Across Major Exchanges
The decline affected Binance and other centralized exchanges, although the drop outside Binance was much larger.
On Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, XRP’s spot trading volume fell from $597 million on Aug. 26 to $168 million on Oct. 11. This represented a decline of $429 million during the period.
Other centralized exchanges recorded an even steeper decline. Combined, their XRP spot trading volume fell from $2 billion to $485.8 million, a loss of $1.514 billion.
In absolute terms, the decline outside Binance was 3.53 times larger than Binance’s $429 million reduction. This confirms that the drop in spot activity was not limited to one exchange but extended across the market.
XRP Futures Trading Remains Strong
While spot trading volume declined, activity in XRP’s futures market remained high. In September, futures trading volume across Binance, Bybit, and OKX reached a combined $56.18 billion, the highest level in six months. Binance accounted for $32.36 billion of the total September futures volume.
More specifically, data from the Binance Spot-to-Futures Volume Ratio confirms the recent divergence between spot activity and futures trading. Notably, the indicator compares XRP’s spot trading volume with its futures volume on Binance.
On Sept. 26, the ratio stood at 31%, meaning spot trading accounted for nearly one-third of Binance’s XRP trading volume under this measure. By Oct. 11, it had fallen to 12.7%, as spot trading lost a substantial share of market activity.
The difference is larger when comparing the two markets directly. By Oct. 11, XRP futures trading volume on Binance was approximately 7.9x its spot volume. On Sept. 26, futures volume was around 3.2x spot volume.
XRP’s Spot-to-Futures Ratio Nears a Historical Low
The Oct. 11 ratio of 12.7% is also approaching a significant historical low. On Aug. 16, the indicator fell to 11%, when XRP traded below $0.99. At that time, spot trading made up a smaller share of Binance’s XRP market activity compared with futures.
XRP now trades near $1.40, considerably above its price below $0.99 in August. However, the gap between spot and futures activity remains almost as wide as it was during that earlier period.