XRP’s Sentiment Turns Bullish, But What Is Stopping a Price Breakout?

XRP’s (XRP) sentiment on social media has risen sharply over the last few days, but overhead resistance at $1.40 kept the price in consolidation.

Key takeaways:

• XRP’s social media sentiment has risen 240% over the last 30 days to a two-year high.
• XRP price recovery may face resistance at $1.40, with a prolonged consolidation likely.

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XRP sentiment jumps on integration with Rakuten Pay 

News of XRP’s integration with the Japanese payment platform, Rakuten Wallet, has sparked renewed optimism among investors. 

Related: XRP set for ‘strongest’ 2026 monthly ETF inflows as bulls target $2

This integration allows Rakuten’s over 44 million users to convert their loyalty points (worth over $23 billion) directly into XRP, trade it in-app, and spend it at over 5 million merchant locations via the Rakuten Pay app. 

This marks “one of the largest retail deployments of $XRP as a payment method to date,” bridging loyalty programs, payments, and crypto utility in a major world economy, Ripple said in an X post on Thursday.

XRP integrates with Rakuten Pay. Source: Ripple

As a result, XRP saw its “2nd highest bullish sentiment across social media in the past 2 years,” Santiment said in a Thursday post on X. 

Santiment’s Positive/Negative sentiment indicator, which measures the ratio of positive to negative social media mentions for a cryptoasset, shows XRP has a score of 3.9, levels last seen in early 2024.

This was more than 240% higher than the 1.135 value recorded on March 29, following a 20% price drop over two weeks. 

Traders are showing excitement over the fact that XRP is “seeing further adoption,” the onchain data provider said, adding:

XRP’s Positive/Negative sentiment metric. source: Santiment

“Buy $XRP with points. Spend it across millions of merchants in Japan,” analyst John Squire said in reaction to the development, adding:

Following this news, XRP/USD jumped 2% over the last 24 hours, but remains 62% below its $3.66 multi-year high reached in July 2025. 

XRP faces stiff resistance above $1.40

XRP’s recent 18% rally from its local low at $1.27 reached on April 5 was stopped at $1.48, coinciding with the upper boundary of a symmetrical triangle. 

This trend line has suppressed the price since early February, as shown in the chart below. 

Bulls must push the price above the $1.40-$1.45 resistance zone to confirm a bullish breakout from the triangle. This area is also where the 50-day exponential moving average, the 100-day simple moving average and the upper trend line of the triangle sit, reinforcing the significance of this resistance zone.

XRP/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

According to XRP’s cost-basis distribution data, investors hold approximately 2 billion XRP at an average cost of $1.40-$1.45, creating a potential resistance zone. This concentration suggests many investors may sell at break-even, potentially stalling XRP’s upward momentum.

XRP cost basis distribution chart. Source: Glassnode

A break above this supply area could open the way for a rally toward the measured target of the triangle at $2.10, about 50% above the current price. 

In a Friday post on X, analyst ChartNerd said a big move was brewing for XRP price once resistance above $1.40 is “cleared.”

As Cointelegraph reported, the XRP/USD pair was required to hold the $1.27 support and rise above the moving averages around $1.40 to signal a trend change.