XRP price is signaling trouble even as Ripple’s business news turns bullish. The token near $1.11 is tracing a bearish reversal on its 8-hour chart that threatens a roughly 13% drop.

Ripple just joined a major AI-payments push, yet traders are leaning the other way. The chart, the big players, and on-chain flows are all pointing lower.

XRP Builds a Bearish Reversal as Sell Volume Fades

On the 8-hour chart, XRP price has formed a head and shoulders pattern, a topping shape of three peaks where the middle one is highest. The right shoulder set on July 15, and price began sliding soon after, the textbook path toward a near 13% breakdown.

However, one detail offers hope. The selling volume weakened as the right shoulder formed, which hints the downside push may lack force. A pattern like this only confirms if price breaks its neckline on strong sell-side volume.

So the chart is a warning, not yet a verdict. The next clue is what the biggest traders are doing.

Whales Are Shorting XRP Even as Ripple Chases AI Payments

Here is what the fundamental bull case looked like for Ripple. On July 14, Ripple joined the Linux Foundation’s x402 group to power AI agent payments on the XRP Ledger using XRP and RLUSD. Agentic payments, where AI software pays for services on its own, is one of crypto’s hottest themes, and giants from Visa to Coinbase are rushing in.

Yet the market shrugged. A proprietary gauge shows top traders positioned 136% more short than retail, a Whale-Retail Divergence score of -24.4. XRP whales are fading the crowd, and that short bias fits the weak chart, as if big money already sees the reversal forming.

So even hot news is not lifting price, which points to positioning over headlines. On-chain flows show why.

On-Chain Flows Show a Fading Retail Bid

XRP on-chain data seals the case. Coins have left exchanges all month, usually a sign of accumulation, but that buying has collapsed in pace.

The daily net outflow peaked near 205 million XRP on July 3, then crashed to about 87 million by July 14, roughly 58%. Crucially, the sharpest drop came as price bounced from July 13 to 14, which suggests holders sold into the rally rather than chasing it.

It stayed near those weak levels on July 14, so fresh buying is thin. That fits the whale shorts and the reversal on the chart, as XRP holder buying keeps fading and all three signals point the same way. The price chart now sets the stakes.

XRP Price Levels to Watch Before a Possible 13% Drop

For now, XRP price is holding $1.10, the 0.236 Fibonacci level it has defended since July 14. Losing it opens XRP support levels at $1.08, then $1.06, the pattern’s XRP neckline.

A clean break below $1.06 would confirm the head and shoulders and expose $1.00, with the measured target near $0.92, about 13% lower. That fits a broader breakdown risk below $1.

To flip the setup, XRP needs an 8-hour close above $1.13. That looks tough while whales stay short, though the fading sell volume leaves room for a bounce first. XRP has also lagged, down about 11% over 30 days while Ethereum rose about 5%. This divergence means that XRP (an altcoin) has decoupled from the biggest altcoin on a 30-day basis.

For now, the $1.06 neckline separates a recovery toward $1.13 from a slide toward $0.92.

Source: BeInCrypto