XRP bullishness peaks after Rakuten listing — could price follow?

Analytics firm Santiment reported that social-media bullishness for XRP reached its second-highest level in two years after Rakuten Wallet listed XRP on April 15. The listing gave 44 million users in Japan the ability to convert Rakuten Points into the token, and Santiment recorded a positive-to-negative comment ratio of 3.9 on April 29.

Rakuten’s program makes more than 3 trillion Rakuten Points eligible for conversion, a loyalty pool Santiment estimated at roughly $23 billion in value. The analytics firm classified the April 29 reading as inside its “FOMO Zone,” where positive commentary substantially outnumbers negative posts.

Santiment cautioned that elevated social sentiment does not usually produce immediate price breakouts. “As far as price goes, these events don’t often instantly lead to major price outbreaks. It is usually after the initial wave of euphoria, after FOMO calms down, that the impact of this kind of news sees the bullish outcome,” the report said.

The firm pointed to recent precedents on XRP’s social and price charts. A similar FOMO spike on March 19 preceded a price pullback, while sharp negative sentiment on February 5 and March 29 came ahead of relief rallies. Santiment noted that spikes of the April scale have often coincided with local tops rather than sustained rallies.

XRP’s price was on track to close April in positive territory, ending a six-month streak of monthly declines that tied its longest losing run since early 2014. Santiment also noted that XRP’s market value had fallen about 55% over the prior nine months.

Seasonal data for May are mixed: the historical average return is near +25%, a figure influenced by a 2017 outlier, while the median May return is about -2.6% and seven of the past 12 Mays closed down. Santiment added that broader market conditions, including easing geopolitical tensions and remaining macroeconomic uncertainty, will influence whether Rakuten-driven conversions translate into sustained on-chain demand.