Tokens linked to Ripple, XRP, have seen a resurgence in positive discussion on social media, a trend that has historically preceded a reversal in price. On April 29, the positive-to-negative sentiment ratio for XRP on social media spiked into what Santiment refers to as the "FOMO zone", reaching 3.9 on the firm's tracker. This is the highest level since March 19, when a similar spike was followed by a sharp decline. According to Santiment, sentiment ratios above the FOMO line indicate overly positive crowd commentary, which is treated as a contrarian signal.
Historically, when social media discussion reaches such levels, the token tends to consolidate or correct in the following 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.
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.
The announcement was described by Ripple's senior ecosystem growth manager, Tatsuya Kohrogi, 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 hype, 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, indicating a consistent pattern where crowd sentiment leads price by 24 to 72 hours in either direction, and crowd extremes have marked reversals more often than continuations. XRP has spent most of April between $1.37 and $1.60, and a clean break of either side will determine whether the Rakuten integration is the start of a sustained re-rating or another headline that fades into the chart.