Binance accounted for $24.69 million of the sampled long liquidations, followed by Bybit at $11.65 million and OKX at $4.36 million. The imbalance shows that forced closures in the collected stream fell overwhelmingly on positions exposed to rising $XRP prices.
The dollar figures describe the notional value of liquidated contracts, rather than traders’ realized cash losses.
Coverage also limits the total. XRPL.to’s methodology says Binance streams at most one liquidation per symbol per second, making its collected figures a floor. Collector restarts can leave gaps.
The separate recent OKX liquidation-order sample is excluded because it can overlap with the streamed events.
Contract exposure fell, then began returning
The clearest evidence that outstanding exposure was removed comes from matched open-interest readings in $XRP units. Open interest measures contracts still outstanding, with a long and a short counterparty to each position.
Between 00:00 UTC on October 8 and October 9, Binance XRPUSDT open interest fell from 321.40 million to 295.47 million $XRP. That removed 25.93 million $XRP of contract exposure, an 8.1% decline. Bybit’s reading fell from 211.92 million to 197.90 million $XRP, down 14.02 million $XRP, or 6.6%, over the same interval.
Because the quantities fell, this was a contraction in outstanding exposure. A lower $XRP price alone can reduce the dollar valuation of a futures book without reducing its underlying quantity.
Open interest in millions of $XRP, at 00:00 UTC on each date in 2026. Data by XRPL.to; Binance readings cross-checked against Binance’s original series.
By October 11 midnight, the direction had changed. Binance added exposure equivalent to 3.72 million $XRP from the preceding midnight, a 1.3% increase. Bybit added 6.46 million $XRP, up 3.3%. Both readings nonetheless remained below October 8: Binance by 7.4% and Bybit by 5.2%.
The dollar series tells a related but different story. Binance’s open-interest value fell from $456.53 million to $407.60 million between October 8 and 9 midnight, a 10.7% decline. That exceeded the 8.1% quantity decline because the implied valuation per $XRP also fell. Binance’s market-data definitions distinguish total open interest from its value; neither is a direct measure of money flowing into or out of $XRP.
Aggregate open interest reflects positions opened and closed voluntarily as well as forced liquidations.
OKX is included in the liquidation sample but excluded from this matched midnight comparison. Its daily open-interest history uses 16:00 UTC observations, so treating those rows as simultaneous with Binance and Bybit would distort the comparison.
Funding recovered as spot activity faded
Funding provides another indication that the conditions facing futures holders changed. It is a periodic payment between long and short positions: a positive rate means longs pay shorts, while a negative rate reverses the payment.
For the completed October 9 UTC day, settled funding totaled roughly minus 0.0173% on Binance, minus 0.0163% on Bybit and minus 0.0101% on OKX. Each total covered three payments. On October 10, Binance and Bybit turned positive at approximately 0.0068% and 0.0015%, respectively, while OKX remained slightly negative at about minus 0.0014%.
The quotes collected by XRPL.to around 12:11:52 UTC on October 11 were positive on all three venues. Binance quoted 0.005908%, Bybit 0.003203% and OKX about 0.005818% for the eight-hour payment due at 16:00 UTC that day.
Those quotes describe the rate indicated at that snapshot. They are separate from the payments already settled over a completed day and can change before settlement.
Positive funding alongside rebuilding open interest means renewed exposure comes with a quoted carrying cost for longs.
Spot activity offers less consistent support for the rebound. Binance’s completed daily candles show $XRP/$USDT turnover declining from 252.45 million $USDT on October 8 to 120.39 million on October 9 and 54.12 million on October 10, a 78.6% fall over two days. Over October 8–10, the daily closing price rose 1.6%, from 1.3805 to 1.4024 $USDT, also reflected in XRPL.to’s spot history.
Buyer-initiated trades represented 51.8% of the $XRP traded on Binance spot on October 9, then 43.1% on October 10. These shares use the $XRP volume fields in Binance’s candle definitions; they measure which side initiated trades, rather than net purchases, since every trade has both a buyer and a seller.
The unfinished October 11 candle showed 1.3957 $USDT at 12:12:18 UTC, close to $1.40. It was a live observation, not that day’s closing price.
The completed rebound days therefore show higher prices with diminishing turnover and inconsistent buyer initiation on Binance. That limits the case for sustained spot buying there.
What the rebuild means for $XRP holders
The returning exposure is exposure to $XRP‘s price, not evidence that the same quantity of native tokens was bought.
Binance’s XRPUSDT specification lists $USDT as the quote and margin asset. Bybit’s XRPUSDT product is a linear perpetual settled in $USDT, while OKX’s $XRP–$USDT-SWAP also specifies $USDT settlement. OKX’s perpetual guide explicitly explains that its $USDT-margined products allow exposure without holding the underlying asset.
Settlement currency should also be distinguished from an account’s collateral. As OKX’s margin guide describes, the assets backing a position depend on the account and margin mode.
For spot holders, the significance is conditional. More outstanding futures exposure creates more positions whose survival depends on sufficient margin. At OKX, positions can be reduced or liquidated when margin falls below maintenance requirements plus trading fees. The daily open-interest figures cannot show how close current positions are to that threshold.
The next useful comparison is whether further $XRP-unit exposure growth comes with sustained spot activity across completed sessions and venues, and whether positive funding persists in settled payments.
