XRP Sentiment Hits 0.67 After the $1 Bounce Already Ran

Santiment’s XRP bullish-to-bearish comment ratio fell to 0.67 on October 1, the weakest print since August 17, when the token sat near $1. Bearish posts now outnumber bullish ones across X, Reddit and Telegram, and Ethereum’s own ratio slipped to 0.89, its weakest since June 7.

That earlier print came with XRP around $1. This one arrived after a run to about $1.60, an October 1 close near $1.49, and a 300 million token net unlock from Ripple’s escrow.

Santiment’s 0.67 Reading Lands After the Rally

Santiment Intelligence posted the split on October 1. A reading below 1.0 means negative comments are the majority, and 0.67 is about 67 bullish remarks for every 100 bearish ones. Bitcoin’s ratio on the same chart sat at 1.37, so the sour mood is concentrated in the two altcoins, not in the whole market. Alternative.me’s Crypto Fear and Greed Index still read 72, in Greed.

XRP closed October 1 near $1.49 after stalling in a $1.47 to $1.53 band, then traded around $1.51 on October 2. Late September had taken it to about $1.60, and more than 11,000 new XRP Ledger wallets opened in a single day at that high. That burst faded with the price.

THE OCTOBER 1 SOCIAL SPLIT

• XRP: 0.67 bullish comments per bearish comment, lowest since August 17.
• Ethereum: 0.89, lowest since June 7.
• Bitcoin: 1.37 on the same Santiment chart, still net positive.
• Fear and Greed: 72, in Greed, even as XRP chatter turned negative.

Santiment did not call 0.67 a sell signal. The firm said heavy pessimism can mean much of the panic selling has already happened, and that quieter optimism with stronger fear has often been a cleaner entry than loud buy-the-dip talk. It also said the print does not guarantee that ether or XRP bounce right away.

😬 Ethereum and XRP sentiment has suddenly turned very negative to kick off October. $ETH is down to 0.89 bullish comments per bearish comment across X, Telegram, Reddit, and other social platforms. This is its lowest ratio since June 7. $XRP sits at just 0.67, its lowest since… pic.twitter.com/ajxBKBVewE

— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) October 1, 2026

“Fear is returning while some underlying market signals remain healthy, which is exactly the kind of divergence contrarian traders typically wait patiently for,” the firm wrote on X.

The Last Time This Ratio Printed, XRP Sat at $1

On August 17, XRP hovered around $1 as Santiment said commentary had reached its most negative level in three months. That is the prior trough this 0.67 reading is being measured against. The token was already down from last year’s highs above $3, and traders were leaning the other way in derivatives even as the chats went dark.

XRP futures open interest data from CoinGlass put outstanding contracts near $2.78 billion that Monday, up 2% in 24 hours, with trading volume up 55% to about $1.17 billion. More than three Binance accounts were long for every one short, and the largest traders on Binance and OKX sat at about 3.6 to one. About 2.77 billion XRP sat in futures, near levels last seen when the token was worth several times more. Santiment counted nearly 50,000 active ledger addresses in a 24-hour stretch, the most in more than two months.

From there, the analog did what the contrarian script says it should. SoSoValue-linked figures show XRP rose from about $1.04 on July 1 to $1.51 on September 30, a gain of about 45% across the third quarter, and the late-September spike pushed it to about $1.60. The bounce from the August $1 area to that high was 60%. By October 1 the follow-through had stalled, and the social ratio had printed the same extreme at a price 49% above the August low.

FROM THE $1 PRINT TO THE 0.67 REPRINT

1. August 17, 2026: XRP trades around $1 as Santiment logs a three-month bearish extreme and CoinGlass shows $2.78 billion of futures open interest.
2. September 23, 2026: Santiment’s 365-day MVRV for XRP sits at -11.75%, so the average one-year holder is still underwater into the bounce.
3. Late September 2026: Price reaches about $1.60 and more than 11,000 new wallets open in a day, then both fade.
4. September 30, 2026: Armada Acquisition Corp. II shareholders approve the Evernorth merger; U.S. spot XRP ETFs finish the quarter with $307.87 million of net inflows.
5. October 1, 2026: Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP, returns 700 million to escrow, and Santiment prints 0.67 as XRP closes near $1.49.
6. October 2, 2026: The ratio is the day’s talking point while XRP trades around $1.51.

That path is why the reprint is a different trade. August 17 was a $1 washout with crowded longs sitting on the floor. October 1 is a failed hold of $1.60 after that washout already paid.

A 300 Million Net Unlock on the Same Morning

Ripple ran its scheduled monthly escrow release on October 1, the tenth unlock of 2026, in four transfers that Whale Alert and Onchain Lens flagged within minutes of each other. The gross figure is 1 billion XRP, worth about $1.49 billion at the prices attached to those transfers. The company originally locked 55 billion XRP into monthly escrow in 2017, and the headline billion is the gross draw, not the amount that stays free.

Hours later, 700 million XRP went back into new escrow contracts in two moves of 400 million and 300 million, 70% of the release. That left 300 million XRP net outside the time-lock, in line with the 200 million to 300 million Ripple has typically kept available after recent months. XRPSCAN figures put remaining escrow near 31.54 billion XRP after the relock, about 31.6% of the 100 billion cap, with circulating supply near 68.4 billion.

THE OCTOBER 1 ESCROW TAPE

The market has learned to treat the gross billion as theatre. The 300 million that did not go back in is still new supply on the same morning the social ratio hit 0.67, which is a different overlay than August 17 had to absorb.

Spot ETFs Kept Taking in Cash Anyway

Fund buyers did not copy the chats. U.S. spot XRP ETF flows compiled by SoSoValue show the listed products took in $307.87 million in the third quarter even as social mood rolled over into October. July added $27.29 million and lifted assets to $988.78 million. August added $159.18 million and took assets to $1.45 billion. September added $121.40 million and left the complex at $1.69 billion of assets.

Q3 SPOT XRP ETF CASH

Bitwise’s fund took $177.94 million of that quarter and held $618.81 million. Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ took $90.64 million and held $439.07 million. Cumulative net inflows since the products launched in late 2025 sat near $1.79 billion by the last days of September, with the seven U.S. funds holding about 1.18 billion XRP, or 1.18% of total supply. Those creations kept arriving while the token slipped off $1.60, which is the quiet bid the 0.67 reading does not capture.

The 473 Million Tokens Due on Nasdaq

Armada Acquisition Corp. II shareholders approved the merger with Evernorth, the Ripple-backed XRP treasury firm, at an extraordinary meeting on September 30. About 20.5 million shares voted for the deal and roughly 1.4 million against, 94% of votes cast, with about 69% of eligible shares taking part, according to the vote tally filed with the SEC. The companies expect to close on October 7 if remaining conditions are met or waived, and Class A shares are due to trade on Nasdaq as XRPN on October 8.

Evernorth expects to hold about 473 million XRP at closing, including tokens contributed in kind, and about $300 million in gross cash before expenses: $225 million from private placements, $30 million of convertible notes and about $48 million left in the SPAC trust. The notes carry a 4% rate and come due in 2031. The firm, led by founder and chief executive Asheesh Birla, a former Ripple executive, says that stash would make it the largest publicly traded pure-play XRP treasury. Ripple, Pantera Capital, Kraken, SBI Group and GSR are among the backers named at launch.

Going public will offer investors a regulated, transparent way to own XRP exposure and participate in the growth of the blockchain economy.

Asheesh Birla, founder and CEO, Evernorth business combination announcement

The Evernorth business combination announcement said the merger and related placements have raised more than $1 billion in total and that 100% of committed funders remain in the deal. Closing is still conditional. Until October 7, that 473 million is a scheduled treasury, not coins already locked on a public balance sheet.

WHAT THE NASDAQ VEHICLE IS BUILT FROM

• Token stash: About 473 million XRP expected at close, including in-kind contributions.
• Cash at close: About $300 million gross before expenses, from placements, notes and trust proceeds.
• Calendar: Close targeted for October 7, XRPN trading targeted for October 8.
• Vote: About 20.5 million shares for and 1.4 million against, 94% of ballots, 69% turnout.

A public treasury that size is a second regulated wrapper beside the ETFs. It does not, by itself, rewrite a 0.67 social print, and it does not close until next week.

Why the Crowd Soured While the Ledger Got Busier

The chatter turned after the $1.60 high failed, not after a new collapse in the ledger’s own activity. Ripple USD, the firm’s dollar stablecoin, has a market value near $2.5 billion, with supply split across Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. J. Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, said the ledger has passed 10 million tracked x402 payments, a machine-to-machine protocol that can settle in XRP or RLUSD. That count is not a direct measure of demand for XRP, because an agent paying in RLUSD does not have to buy the token.

Santiment’s own 365-day MVRV still showed the average one-year XRP holder at a -11.75% unrealized loss on September 23, even as price worked higher. Holders who bought the ETF story higher up the range can talk bearish without the network going quiet. The 11,000 new wallets at $1.60 look, in that light, like a one-day rush that did not stay.

Trader Coach K wrote that this is usually where he starts paying attention, and that when everyone looks one way he starts watching the other. That is the trade Santiment is selling. A 0.67 reading can also be one bearish wave copied from feed to feed, a mood count rather than a census of independent books, which is why fading it blind after a 60% bounce is a different decision from fading it at $1. Sentiment is a filter for crowded shorts. It is a poor trigger for a market order.

The Analog Breaks If $1.47 Gives Way

August 17 had a $1 floor, leveraged longs stacked on Binance and OKX, and a social extreme that then preceded a run to $1.60. October 1 has the social extreme again, a 300 million net unlock, ETF cash that already arrived, and a 473 million treasury still waiting on an October 7 close. The analog holds only if spot keeps the September higher-low zone and the $1.47 edge of the October 1 band.

WHERE THE READINGS DISAGREE

• Santiment: Heavy pessimism plus healthier underlying signals is the divergence swing traders wait for, with no promise of an immediate bounce.
• The spent-analog view: The $1 print already produced the bounce; 0.67 at $1.49 is disappointment after $1.60, not the same washout.
• The position filter: Use the ratio to pause crowded shorts, and wait for books to flatten before treating 0.67 as a buy trigger.

A sustained sub-1.0 ratio with rising short open interest would weaken even that softer case. Evernorth still has to close on October 7, XRPN is not yet trading, and the 300 million tokens that did not return to escrow are already outside the lock. The $1 analog paid once. This print has to earn the next move from $1.47, not from the memory of $1.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of market data, company statements and public filings, and it is for information only. It is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell XRP, ether, RLUSD, ETF shares or Evernorth-related securities, or a prediction of future prices. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or other qualified professional who can review their own situation before making any investment decision. Figures, ratios, escrow balances, ETF flows and deal timetables reflect the cited sources dated October 1 and October 2, 2026, and they can change with the next session, filing or on-chain move.