The cryptocurrency market faced intense selling pressure, with $485 million in liquidations recorded over a 24-hour period, according to data from CoinGlass. This wave of forced position closures coincided with a $100 billion drop in total market capitalization, as reported by CoinGecko. Analysts attributed the downturn to renewed global trade tensions and tariff uncertainty, which weighed on risk assets broadly. Weak market liquidity and low conviction amplified the sell-off.
Amid the volatility, XRP saw its trading volume surge by 77% to $2.43 billion even as its price fell 3.49% to $1.37, extending weekly losses to 6.51%. On-chain data from Santiment revealed XRP posted approximately $1.93 billion in weekly realized losses, its largest spike since 2022—a potential capitulation signal. Despite the price pressure, network activity on the XRP Ledger remained robust, with daily successful transactions climbing nearly 40% toward 2.5 million.
Separately, Dogecoin (DOGE) showed relative strength against Bitcoin, nearing its first golden cross of 2026 on the DOGE/BTC chart. This technical pattern, where the 23-day simple moving average approaches the 50-day average, indicates DOGE's price has been appreciating faster than BTC's over recent weeks. During the session, DOGE held near $0.095 while BTC traded around $65,755, with DOGE posting stronger intraday gains.
In other news, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin accelerated his selling activity, offloading 3,788.57 ETH (worth approximately $7.3 million) over 72 hours, as tracked by Lookonchain. This follows Buterin's earlier announcement that the Ethereum Foundation and affiliated entities would enter a period of "mild austerity," liquidating assets to fund ecosystem development. Since the start of the month, Buterin has sold over 8,800 ETH.
