Ripple CTO David Schwartz Says XRP (XRP) Ledger Hub Peers Climb Back to 501

Schwartz Reports Stable XRPL Hub

David Schwartz, Ripple's chief technology officer, says the XRP Ledger infrastructure he personally operates has become noticeably more reliable over the past two weeks. According to figures Schwartz shared, the number of active peers on his hub server climbed back above the 500 mark to 501 in the latest reading, putting it close to the 509 peak recorded during the same fortnight. A hub server, in XRPL terms, is a node that maintains simultaneous connections with many other servers to relay ledger data, transactions and network information, while peer connections are the direct links through which servers exchange that data. Schwartz noted that disconnections between peers have become less frequent on his setup, though he explicitly said he does not yet know why the improvement occurred.

The two-week chart covering September 3 through September 17 shows the recovery in active peers was gradual rather than a single spike, and no definitive technical explanation for the steadier links has been offered. When a server repeatedly loses peers it must rebuild those connections, so fewer drops suggest longer-lived sessions and a more predictable operating environment for the node operator. Schwartz's disclosure drew a range of reactions from followers, with some asking whether a specific theory explained the shift, others wondering whether an AI-based model was running on the hub, and several offering lighthearted takes. For now, the only concrete change confirmed is improved connection stability on Schwartz's own hub; whether the trend is network-wide, a quirk of his local configuration or the result of another technical factor remains an open question. Our earlier XRP coverage noted that Ledger transactions jumped 23.9% as fee burn ticked higher, a separate but broadly constructive network-health signal.

Open Interest Falls $250 Million

While the network story is quiet, the futures market for the token has gone through a pronounced deleveraging. Derivatives open interest across XRP's market has fallen from $1.128 billion in August to roughly $871.22 million, a contraction of more than $250 million in under a month. The pullback is broad-based rather than exchange-specific: Binance open interest dropped from $558 million to $423 million, while Bybit's fell from $379 million to $291 million over the same stretch. Crucially, the decline has not read as outright capitulation. Binance's OI-weighted funding rate remains positive, account-level data from Binance and OKX shows traders leaning long by a factor of roughly 2.5 to 3, and 24-hour liquidations totaled just $9.67 million, split almost evenly between $4.87 million in longs and $4.80 million in shorts. The narrower 12-hour window was long-skewed — $500.96K in long liquidations against $148.49K in shorts — matching a brief stretch of weakness before the latest bounce, and funding had briefly turned negative earlier in the month around September 7 before positive readings resumed.

Spot demand has absorbed the leverage flush. Franklin Templeton's XRPZ fund pulled in $3.5 million on September 16, extending a ten-day inflow streak — our desk covered that print in Franklin Templeton's XRP ETF books $3.5 million net inflow on Sept. 16 — even as Bitcoin ETFs saw $295 million in outflows and Ethereum products lost $224 million the same day. Structurally, price sits mid-range in an 8-hour parallel channel, with the 50-week EMA near $1.52 capping upside and the 20-week EMA near $1.29, reinforced by the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement, acting as the key floor. A daily or weekly close below $1.29 would break that confluence and put psychological $1 support back in play; clearing $1.40 would break the channel and open $1.60–$1.70. For entry timing around these levels, our guide to how to buy XRP walks through the venue options. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

COINOTAG Signal: $1.28 Defense

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $1.2836 support at 95/100, driven by the confluence of the 50-period EMA, a high-volume node, the lower Bollinger band and a recent resistance-to-support flip, while the $1.3135 resistance also scores 95/100 on VWAP, a MACD cross and the Ichimoku Senkou A/B clouds. Spot trades at $1.2913 (+0.73%), with RSI at 45.98 and a bearish MACD signal in a sideways trend. Derivatives show funding at 0.0005%, open interest of $840.9 million and a lopsided 3.06 long/short account ratio (75.3% long) — crowded longs that could amplify a downside flush. The Fear and Greed Index sits neutral at 50/100. Our base case: holding $1.2836 sets up a retest of $1.3135; a daily close below it invalidates the bullish structure.