Important points
Why is XRP struggling despite Ripple’s organic growth?
Momentum between Ripple and XRP is decoupling, with investors turning bearish and selling, indicating that the rally is more psychological than structural.
Can altcoins repeat Q3 gains?
There was a clear psychological disconnect in the fourth quarter, with realized losses rapidly increasing and profit-taking accelerating, making it difficult for stocks to rise again.
ripple [XRP] There is a clear divergence this cycle.
On the macro side, XRP is being decoupled from Ripple’s growing institutional footprint. Despite this expansion, the altcoin is down 20% this quarter.
So the real divide here is Ripple’s momentum and XRP’s market structure.
Meanwhile, the gap is showing up in investor behavior, with traders selling on the weak side. So does this mean that XRP’s Q4 rally was more psychological than structural, making it more difficult to hope for a repeat of the Q3 rally?
Mapping XRP’s third quarter investor sentiment on a cost basis
The third quarter was the strongest bullish phase of 2025 for XRP.
The altcoin rose 27% quarterly to hit a peak of $3.60. The move also ranked as XRP’s most aggressive expansion since its breakout in Q4 2024, when XRP finally broke out of years of stagnation with a 240% surge.
From a psychology perspective, Q3 is when investors really reload.
According to AMBCrypto, after XRP recorded a clean impulse along with triple-digit gains, traders began to continuously price it. And when you look at the total cost basis, that expectation matches the structure.
Source: Glassnode
The clean yellow band shows the supply of 1 billion XRP built up at the $3.30 level.
Meanwhile, the dark red band between $2.80 and $2.82 represents a hefty cost base density of 2.5 billion, the largest cluster on the map. This zone captures the heavy accumulation that occurred during XRP’s 27% rally in the third quarter.
Therefore, this confirms AMBCrypto’s view that investors are poised for continued bullishness.
However, in the fourth quarter, XRP showed a clear psychological disconnect, showing why expecting a repeat of the third quarter is still too far-fetched.
Ripple’s third-quarter guilty verdict coincides with fourth-quarter reality check
As mentioned earlier, the momentum of Ripple and XRP are not moving in tandem.
This was clearly visible in Glassnode’s data, which showed that a new important bifurcation occurred in this cycle. In the third quarter, XRP reached a peak of $3.60, with a sharp spike in profit realizations, reaching approximately $550 million per day.
Usually this is a bullish sign and traders book profits while maintaining the upward flow. However, entering the fourth quarter, profit realization jumped 240%, from $65 million to $220 million per day, even as XRP fell from $3.09 to $2.30.
Source: Glassnode
Simply put, traders are taking distributions towards falling prices.
From a psychological perspective, with a large group of HODLers sitting below the surface, increased selling has put additional supply into the market, and realized losses have soared to over $470 million as XRP breaks above $2.50.
In conclusion, XRP’s fourth quarter shows obvious psychological stress.
Realized/unrealized losses are accumulating, profit taking is accelerating, and Ripple’s organic growth is not flowing into the price. Taken together, these differences make a rally above $3 difficult.