Karla Barker 
XRP’s extreme liquidation imbalance
XRP experienced what can only be described as an abnormal liquidation event yesterday. While the price barely moved—dropping just 1% from $2.82 to $2.84—the leverage behind long positions created a perfect storm. According to CoinGlass data, $635,000 worth of long positions were liquidated compared to just $1,000 in short positions. That works out to a staggering 63,500% imbalance ratio.
What’s interesting here is how such a small price movement could trigger such massive liquidations. It suggests that traders had become extremely one-sided in their positioning, perhaps expecting a breakout that never came. The leverage involved turned what should have been a minor dip into a substantial sell-off for those caught on the wrong side.
Across the broader market during that same hour, more than $14 million in positions were liquidated. Ethereum led with nearly $2 million, Bitcoin traders lost over $300,000, and Solana saw close to half a million in forced closures. But none showed the same extreme distortion between long and short liquidations as XRP.
Market-wide liquidation pressure
The XRP situation was just one part of a much larger market stress test. Over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market suffered approximately $400 million in liquidations. This represents one of the most severe liquidation events we’ve seen in recent weeks.
Bitcoin breaking below a crucial support level around $113,000 appears to have been the main trigger. The drop to around $111,800 created uncertainty about short-term stability, causing cascading liquidations across multiple assets.
Ethereum bore the brunt of the damage with over $178 million liquidated, followed by Bitcoin at $57 million and Solana at $24 million. The liquidation heatmap showed widespread weakness, with altcoins like Dogecoin and XRP also experiencing significant forced closures.
More than 128,000 traders were affected overall, with long positions taking the hardest hit—$333 million versus just $73 million for short positions. This disparity highlights how overly leveraged bullish bets were punished severely when the market turned.
Exchange data shows Hyperliquid and Bybit accounted for the majority of liquidations, with Hyperliquid alone recording $62.5 million in erased positions. Binance and OKX followed closely, indicating that the stress was distributed across multiple trading platforms rather than concentrated in one place.
Dogecoin whale accumulation
While the broader market was experiencing liquidations, Dogecoin whales were busy accumulating. Over a 48-hour period, wallets holding between 100 million and one billion DOGE added more than two billion coins to their holdings. At current prices around $0.23-$0.24, that represents approximately $480 million in buying pressure.
The timing here is particularly interesting. Dogecoin has been testing what many consider a critical support level—the same zone where it bounced repeatedly over the summer. This appears to be the lower boundary of its rising channel pattern.
When whales accumulate at key technical levels like this, it often signals confidence in the support holding. The fact that this buying occurred precisely as Dogecoin was testing this important level suggests it wasn’t random accumulation but rather strategic positioning.
Of course, whale activity doesn’t guarantee price direction, but it does provide context for where larger players see value. With Dogecoin down from its mid-September highs above $0.30, this accumulation around the $0.23-$0.24 range could indicate expectations of a potential bounce.
The broader market context makes this whale activity even more noteworthy. While many traders were being liquidated across various assets, these Dogecoin whales were effectively buying the dip at what they perceive as a critical support level. It creates an interesting dynamic where retail panic meets institutional accumulation.