"The sheer scale of liquidations caught many by surprise," said a crypto trader watching XRP's sharp downturn on Saturday. Over the past day, the market saw XRP longs wiped out to the tune of nearly $2 million, representing the overwhelming majority of the $2.12 million total liquidations, according to Coinglass data.
This liquidations imbalance, exceeding 2,200% in favor of longs versus shorts, highlights the aggressive positioning by traders betting on XRP's rally that backfired as the price remained under pressure. Short liquidations barely registered at around $127,000, reinforcing that bearish bets were less impacted.
In a shorter 12-hour snapshot, the crypto community witnessed $257,760 in XRP liquidations, with $169,790 from liquidated long positions and $87,970 in shorts. Meanwhile, XRP’s broader market performance reflected this strain: its price slipped 0.26%, market cap dipped slightly to roughly $68.2 billion, and trading volume dropped sharply by over 26% to $785 million. These figures suggest dwindling market enthusiasm and reduced liquidity.
This weakness coincides with Ripple’s launch of Ripple Mint, an institutional platform aimed at simplifying the minting and management of its RLUSD stablecoin. While Ripple Mint offers direct minting and redemption from source plus extensive integration capabilities, some analysts argue this move raises doubts about XRP’s immediate utility in Ripple's enterprise offerings. RLUSD has grown to a market cap near $1.5 billion, and institutions can now handle payments and settlements with RLUSD without necessarily acquiring XRP, potentially restricting XRP’s demand despite Ripple’s expanding infrastructure presence.
