XRP traders have experienced $18.8 million in liquidations across leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the last 24 hours, according to data from Coinglass. 

With XRP struggling to find a clear direction, these sell-offs indicate growing market volatility and uncertainty in the crypto industry, following shifting market sentiments and regulatory developments.

Typically, liquidations occur during periods of high price volatility when the market moves against leveraged positions. In this case, XRP liquidations affected both short and long traders almost equally, with $9.8 million in short positions and $9.01 million in long positions wiped out.

Bybit tops $7.25M XRP liquidations

Crypto platform Bybit recorded the largest XRP liquidations, with a total of $7.28 million. A breakdown of these liquidations shows that $2.58 million were from short positions, while $4.7 million were from long positions. Binance followed, recording total liquidations of $7.08 million.

Notably, 73.5% of liquidated positions on Binance were shorts, indicating that the platform had the largest number of traders betting against XRP’s price rise. In contrast, long positions were the most impacted on OKX, which recorded total liquidations of $2.8 million.

In addition, several smaller exchanges—especially CoinEx, Gate.io, and HTX—each recorded more than $100,000 in liquidations, proving that the sell-offs weren’t limited to top platforms. While their liquidation amounts were smaller, niche derivatives platforms like Bitfinex and BitMEX also recorded forced position closures.

XRP liquidations split

With nearly equal amounts on both sides of the market, the liquidation distribution reflects that bias around XRP remains split. However, the dominance of short liquidations on Binance suggests there was a rapid price rally that squeezed out short traders.

During an unexpected price surge, short sellers must buy back their positions, increasing buying pressure and pushing prices even higher in the short term. These liquidations come at a time when investors and regulators are closely watching XRP’s price movement.

On Thursday, U.Today reported that Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had reached a significant agreement in their long-running legal battle.