A quiet XRP rally turned into a liquidation minefield on Wednesday as the market flipped against overexposed long traders in one of the sharpest hourly reversals seen in recent days.
At the center of it is a 721,735% spike in long liquidations — no, that is not a typo. Within just one hour, nearly $474,000 worth of bullish bets were wiped out, while short liquidations barely crossed $65, according to CoinGlass. That is not just an imbalance — it is almost complete silence from the other side of the trade.
The setup was not complicated. The XRP price was rising through the early session, ticking from around $2.27 to a local high of $2.36. Then came a fast reversal — not dramatic in percentage terms but just enough to trip a cascade of margin calls. The price dipped under $2.29, and that was all it took. Leverage did the rest.
What followed was a string of red that did not need to fall far — it just needed to be fast. And in a heavily long market, fast is all it takes.
Zoom out to the 12-hour view, and XRP still leads the board in terms of liquidation imbalance. Other assets were hit — BTC saw $11.75 million in long liquidations, and ETH took $3.55 million, but XRP stood out for how concentrated the pain was in such a small window.
Overall, $103 million in liquidations were recorded in the 12-hour stretch across the crypto market. Longs made up more than two-thirds of that. XRP just happened to be the first to break.
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin
