XRP Rides Derivatives Wave to $1.35 While Spot ETFs Wave Goodbye to $3.5M

$XRP kicked off April 6 looking fresher than a degen's portfolio after a green candle, surging over 4% in 24 hours while leveraged markets ran hotter than a ASIC miner in July. The token changed hands at roughly $1.35, pushing its market cap past $82.9 billion – a tidy 4% climb that had traders briefly forgetting their trauma from 2017.

The price rally came with a side of healthy derivatives activity that would make any perp trader smile. $XRP's Open Interest jumped around 5.73% across all crypto exchanges, while its OI-weighted Funding Rate flipped positive on Monday – music to bullish traders' ears, basically the sonic equivalent of seeing your PnL go green for once.

But here's the plot twist that nobody asked for: spot buyers decided to sit this one out like introverts at a party. Despite the intraday derivatives frenzy, $XRP has struggled to maintain momentum thanks to weak demand from the spot crowd – institutional investors apparently still scrolling through other options. Binance's $XRP liquidity has been camping at its absolute floor for nine straight months, which is basically the crypto equivalent of that friend who always says they're "about to leave" but never actually does.

The spot ETF picture isn't pretty either, folks. During the first week of April, U.S. spot $XRP ETFs saw a net cash outflow of approximately $3.56 million, leaving total net assets at a modest $916.73 million. Quarterly inflows have tanked by over 96% in Q1 – yikes, that's the kind of drop that makes even Bitcoin maxis check if they're okay.

For $XRP to stage a real comeback that'll have the charts looking less like a sad face emoji, it'll need more love from both spot ETF inflows and a sustained derivatives market boost. Until then, it's basically riding the lightning while everyone waits for the real party to start.