XRP has regained traction in social media discussions, a trend that historically signals a potential price reversal. The token's sentiment ratio on social media spiked to 3.9 on April 29, the highest since March 19, when a similar surge was followed by a sharp decline. This spike indicates overwhelmingly positive crowd sentiment, which Santiment interprets as a contrarian signal.
Historically, when social media chatter reaches such levels, the token tends to consolidate or correct in subsequent days as the buyers driving the social wave exhaust their demand. The recent integration of XRP with Rakuten, allowing users to convert points into XRP, has contributed to the asset's second-highest bullish sentiment on social media in the past two years.
Traders are excited about the prospect of 44 million Rakuten users spending XRP at over 5 million merchant locations, trading it within the Rakuten Pay app, and converting their Rakuten points directly into XRP. The announcement of this integration was hailed by Ripple's senior ecosystem growth manager as one of the most significant XRP milestones. The market took two weeks to fully process the implications, with sentiment building gradually before spiking this week. Despite the social media frenzy, XRP traded at $1.37 on Thursday, down 2.1% over 24 hours and 3.7% on the week.
Santiment also noted that XRP sentiment hit the 'fear, uncertainty, and doubt' zone on March 29, prompting a 'buy the dip' opportunity, and the token bounced shortly after. The pattern in 2026 has been consistent, with crowd sentiment leading price movements by 24 to 72 hours in either direction, and crowd extremes marking reversals more often than continuations. XRP has largely traded between $1.37 and $1.60 throughout April, and a clean break of either side will determine whether the Rakuten integration marks the start of a sustained re-rating or another fleeting headline.