XRP tokens, linked to Ripple, have seen a resurgence in positive social media discussions, a signal that has historically been contrarian to price movements. The sentiment ratio, which measures the balance between positive and negative commentary, spiked into what Santiment refers to as the "FOMO zone" on April 29, reaching 3.9 on the firm's tracker.

This reading is the highest since March 19, when a similar spike was followed by a sharp decline. When sentiment ratios exceed the FOMO line, it indicates that the crowd's commentary is overwhelmingly positive, a signal that Santiment interprets as contrarian. Historically, when social media chatter reaches these levels, the token tends to consolidate or correct in the following days as the buying momentum driven by social sentiment runs out of fresh 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.

This development has excited traders, given that XRP is now the fourth-largest market cap in crypto. The trigger for this surge appears to be the Rakuten Pay integration, which went live in early April and added XRP as a payment method across the Japanese wallet application's ecosystem. This deal enables an estimated 44 million Rakuten users to spend XRP at over 5 million merchant locations, trade it within the Rakuten Pay app, and convert their Rakuten points directly into XRP.

Ripple's senior ecosystem growth manager, Tatsuya Kohrogi, framed this as "one of the most significant XRP milestones." The market took two weeks to fully process the implications, with sentiment gradually building 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 on March 29, XRP sentiment hit the FUD zone, and the token bounced shortly after, a pattern that has been consistent throughout 2026, where crowd sentiment leads price movements by 24 to 72 hours in either direction, and crowd extremes have more often marked reversals than continuations.

XRP has spent most of April fluctuating between $1.37 and $1.60, and a clean break of either side will determine whether the Rakuten integration marks the beginning of a sustained re-rating or another headline that fades into the chart.