Why XRP Price Remains Stagnant Despite Social Sentiment Reaching Two-Year Peak
Despite bullish social media sentiment sparked by Rakuten Wallet partnership, XRP encounters significant price barriers at the $1.40 level that may limit gains.
The social media sentiment surrounding XRP (XRP) has experienced a substantial surge in recent days, yet the cryptocurrency's price remains trapped in a consolidation phase due to significant overhead resistance positioned at $1.40.
Key takeaways:
- Social media sentiment for XRP has experienced a 240% increase over the past 30 days, reaching levels not seen in two years.
- The XRP price recovery effort is likely to encounter resistance at the $1.40 mark, potentially leading to an extended period of consolidation.
Rakuten Pay integration drives XRP sentiment surge
The announcement regarding XRP's partnership with Rakuten Wallet, a prominent Japanese payment platform, has ignited fresh optimism throughout the investor community.
The partnership enables more than 44 million Rakuten users to directly convert their loyalty points (valued at over $23 billion) into XRP, execute trades within the application, and utilize it for purchases at more than 5 million merchant establishments through the Rakuten Pay application.
According to a Thursday post on X by Ripple, this development represents "one of the largest retail deployments of $XRP as a payment method to date," effectively connecting loyalty programs, payment systems, and cryptocurrency utility within a significant global economy.
The integration resulted in XRP experiencing its "2nd highest bullish sentiment across social media in the past 2 years," according to Santiment's Thursday post on X.
Data from Santiment's Positive/Negative sentiment indicator, which calculates the proportion of positive versus negative mentions on social media for cryptocurrency assets, reveals that XRP currently holds a score of 3.9, a level not witnessed since early 2024.
This represented an increase of more than 240% compared to the 1.135 value that was recorded on March 29, which came after a 20% price decline over a two-week period.
Market participants are demonstrating enthusiasm about the fact that XRP is "seeing further adoption," according to the onchain data provider, which also noted:
"As far as price goes, these events don't often instantly lead to major price outbreaks. It is usually after the initial wave of euphoria, after FOMO calms down, that the impact of this kind of news sees the bullish outcome."
"Buy $XRP with points. Spend it across millions of merchants in Japan," analyst John Squire commented in response to this development, further stating:
"This is what mass adoption looks like."
In the wake of this announcement, the XRP/USD trading pair gained 2% during the past 24 hours, though it continues to trade 62% beneath its $3.66 multi-year peak that was achieved in July 2025.
Strong resistance confronts XRP above the $1.40 level
The recent 18% price rally in XRP from its local bottom at $1.27 on April 5 encountered a ceiling at $1.48, which aligns with the upper boundary line of a symmetrical triangle pattern.
This particular trend line has acted as a price suppressor since the beginning of February, as illustrated in the chart provided below.
For bulls to confirm a bullish breakout from the triangle formation, they need to drive the price above the $1.40-$1.45 resistance zone. This particular area also contains the 50-day exponential moving average, the 100-day simple moving average, and the upper trend line of the triangle, further strengthening the importance of this resistance zone.
Based on XRP's cost-basis distribution data, market participants currently hold roughly 2 billion XRP with an average acquisition cost of $1.40-$1.45, establishing a probable resistance zone. This clustering of holdings indicates that numerous investors might liquidate their positions at break-even prices, which could potentially impede XRP's upward price movement.
Should XRP successfully break through this supply zone, it could pave the way for an advance toward the triangle's measured target at $2.10, representing approximately 50% upside from current price levels.
In a Friday X post, analyst ChartNerd suggested that a significant price movement was developing for XRP once the resistance above $1.40 is "cleared."
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the XRP/USD pair needed to maintain support at the $1.27 level and push above the moving averages around $1.40 to indicate a reversal in trend.