An hourly death cross has formed on XRP's chart as the cryptocurrency market deepened its losses early Saturday, February 28, 2026. The technical indicator, where the 50-period moving average (MA) fell below the 200-period MA on the hourly timeframe, signaled a bearish shift for the digital asset. This occurred alongside a broader market sell-off that resulted in over $515 million in total crypto liquidations within a 24-hour period.
XRP's price declined sharply, down 8.07% in 24 hours and nearly 11% on a weekly basis, erasing recent outperformance. At the time of reporting, XRP was trading at approximately $1.28, with its market capitalization falling 7.08% to $78.77 billion. The sell-off contributed to an estimated $128 billion being erased from the total crypto market capitalization, according to CoinGecko data.
Liquidation data reveals extreme pressure on leveraged traders, particularly those holding long positions. Over the last 24 hours, XRP liquidations totaled $13.86 million, with a staggering $12.56 million from long positions compared to just $1.31 million from shorts. This represents a liquidation imbalance of over 1,058% against bulls. In the past 12 hours alone, $9.14 million was liquidated, with $8.08 million from longs.
The market downturn is attributed to investors reacting to macroeconomic concerns, including a hotter-than-expected 0.5% jump in producer prices. Traders interpreted this data as inflationary pressure that may keep the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates in the near term, triggering a risk-off move across assets.
Despite the price decline, trading activity for XRP increased, with 24-hour volume rising 27.8% to $3.94 billion. Analysts note that high volume during a price drop often reflects aggressive selling, profit-taking, and liquidation pressure in derivatives markets. The hourly Relative Strength Index (RSI) for XRP fell to a deeply oversold level of 18, indicating the potential for a relief rally. Key support is eyed at the $1.11 level, with next resistance levels at $1.67 and $2.27.
In related XRP ecosystem news, Flare Network announced a shift for XRP holders through Flare Smart Accounts, allowing direct yield generation from XRPL wallets. Separately, the XRP Ledger Foundation released a post-mortem on a recent batch amendment incident, noting a critical logic flaw was identified during its voting phase but posed no risk to mainnet funds.
