The price of XRP shot up to $0.92 in just a few minutes on Coinbase only to fall by 30% immediately afterwards.
The price of XRP shot up to over $0.90 on the Coinbase US crypto exchange on November 24, only to fall back by approximately 30% in seconds. This was the highest price level since May 2018.
The rise in XRP was driven by Coinbase users
The increase was apparently driven by Coinbase users, as the price of XRP was not at the same level on other exchanges. Bitstamp and Binance, for example, recorded a high of only $0.79 during the same peak.
Shortly after the fall, the „Coinbase“ hashtag began to be a trend on Twitter in the US.
While Coinbase’s official status page currently says everything is working normally, other sources show that the exchange is indeed experiencing problems.
„WHAT AMAZING, new to Coinbase, and all my XRP shops went into limbo and finally appeared only AFTER the price dropped, causing me to lose a ton of money!“ wrote pseudonymous user Mike Palagi in one of the Downdetector comments.
What caused the accident?
The surge may have been triggered in late October when an anonymous whale sent $50 million XRP at that time to Bitstamp. Since then the XRP/USD has been on a strong parabolic uptrend of crypto wealth, rising 137% in the last week to its highest levels in over two years.
Before the price rise and immediate fall, the popular trader with the pseudonym cryptoSqueeze observed that the XRP funding rate turned negative. He said:
Negative financing on the XRPUSDT on FTX and OKeX, what could go wrong?
During the rally, the financing rate on the XRP perpetual swap contract at Binance remained at 0.01%. This meant that there was a balance between buyers and sellers, as the price rose by over 35% in one day.
Although the short squeeze initially led the way up, sources who preferred not to be named told Cointelegraph that some market makers in Coinbase withdrew their orders as the rise became more pronounced.
Despite the current rise, XRP is still down 78% from its January 2018 record high. In terms of Bitcoin (BTC), XRP is down 83% from its historical high, although technical analysis suggests that the multi-year downward trend may have been broken last week.