Social data shows “extreme fear” for XRP, but price movements and institutional inflows prove otherwise.
XRP XRP $1.96 24h volatility: 3.1% Market cap: $118.88 B Vol. 24h: $4.29 B faced significant selling pressure as the broader crypto market saw turbulence due to US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats on the EU.
The fifth-largest cryptocurrency even fell to the “extreme fear” zone, Santiment wrote, as retail traders pushed increased bearish commentary.
👍 According to our social data, XRP has fallen into 'Extreme Fear' territory. Small retail traders have become pessimistic toward the #5 market cap cryptocurrency after a -19% drop since the high back on January 5th. Historically, this high level of bearish commentary leads to… pic.twitter.com/T0ARoRNDWw
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 22, 2026
XRP plunged from its local high of $2.4 on Jan. 5 to $1.88 on Jan. 21. The selling pressure, which brought a 19% price fall to the asset, triggered negative sentiment for XRP, similar to Jan. 2. XRP gained bullish momentum right after the retail was betting on its downfall.
Santiment’s data shows that whenever XRP saw strong bearish sentiment from the crowd, it saw notable gains.
XRP is up by 2% in the past 24 hours and is trading at $1.95 at the time of writing. Its daily trading volume also increased by 22% to $4.3 billion, showing increased interest from traders.
XRP’s Winning with Institutions
Despite the negative crowd, XRP is seeing notable movements from institutions.
The US-based spot XRP exchange-traded funds recorded a net inflow of $7.16 million on Jan. 21, bringing the total net inflows to $1.39 billion, according to data from SoSoValue. So far, these products have seen only two days of outflows on Jan. 7 and 20.
These inflows came while Bitcoin BTC $89 958 24h volatility: 0.9% Market cap: $1.79 T Vol. 24h: $56.16 B spot ETFs saw a $708.71 million outflow, and products connected to Ethereum ETH $3 007 24h volatility: 1.4% Market cap: $362.28 B Vol. 24h: $34.39 B registered a $286.95 million net outflow on the same day.
Moreover, Ripple, the company behind XRP, formed a strategic alliance with DXC Technology, an IT services and consulting company that helps large enterprises run complex technology systems.
This will allow Ripple to integrate blockchain technology into existing banking systems. Ripple’s technology will be embedded directly into DXC’s Hogan core banking platform, a system that currently supports over $5 trillion in deposits and 300 million accounts worldwide.
The strong institutional confidence in Ripple’s technology normalizes the use of crypto-native tech in traditional banking.
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