U.Today Crypto Digest: XRP Hits Insane 8,700% Liquidation Imbalance, $500 Million BTC Whale Awakents to Dump Bitcoin, Shiba Inu (SHIB) Bulls Lose Control

XRP longs wiped out as liquidation imbalance hits extreme

XRP just printed an 8,700% liquidation imbalance as $522K in longs got wiped out near the $2 mark.

• XRP longs wipeout. XRP recorded $528,940 in total liquidations, with long positions accounting for a staggering $522,900, while shorts totaled just $6,040.

XRP saw $528,940 in liquidations, with long positions accounting for a mind-boggling $522,900. Short sellers were barely registered — it was just $6,040, as per CoinGlass. 

That is an 8,700% imbalance between longs and shorts. Just for context, Bitcoin's liquidations during the same period added up to $815,000, but with a much more even split. Ethereum lost $2.02 million, mostly from both sides.

XRP's liquidation profile, on the other hand, looks like a tough spot for bulls, but a green carpet for patient bears.

• ETFs driving price. The market may be treating the $2 level as a psychological anchor, an institutional accumulation zone, or an exhaustion area following ETF-driven rallies.

The coin has been trading pretty much flat at around $2.053, with minimal deviation despite the long squeeze. This unusual price stability, along with frequent long liquidations, points to either algorithmic reloading or systematic leverage mispricing.

The market might be treating $2 as a sort of unspoken reversion point — it could be a psychological anchor, an institutional entry point, or maybe it is just an exhaustion zone after the rallies triggered by XRP ETFs.

Dormant Bitcoin whale resurfaces with calculated sell-off

A Satoshi-era whale just sold another 500 BTC for $47.77 million, bringing total cash-outs to $265 million.

• BTC seloff. A wallet labeled “5K BTC OG” by Arkham has become active after more than a decade, beginning to sell long-held coins.

A long-dormant Bitcoin whale has emerged from the shadows and begun selling. The wallet, tagged by Arkham as "5K BTC OG," originally received 5,000 BTC in 2012 when the price was just $332, totaling only $1.66 million. Today, that stash is worth nearly half a billion dollars, and the entity has already cashed out half of it.

According to data from Lookonchain and Arkham, the wallet began offloading Dec. 4, 2024. Since then, it has sold 2,500 BTC in multiple transactions, earning about $265 million at an average exit price of $106,164. 

• Chasing liquidity. The pattern suggests an effort to sell into deep liquidity zones, minimizing slippage and avoiding detection by automated market-making systems.

Just hours ago, an additional 500 BTC was sent to Binance, valued at $47.77 million. This marks the latest wave of exits from this 12-year-old holder.

The selling behavior appears organized and calculated. Rather than fully liquidating, the OG has moved 250-500 BTC per deposit, spreading the outflows across at least 10 Binance-bound transactions over five months.

These moves suggest an intent to blend into greater liquidity zones to avoid high slippage and automated market maker detection.

Shiba Inu loses bullish structure after key support breaks

SHIB price lost its daily mid-Bollinger Band yesterday, opening the door to a mechanical reversion toward $0.00000718.

• Bullish setup. SHIB closed decisively below the 20-day moving average.

Shiba Inu just erased its bullish road map overnight. SHIB had been flirting with a breakout for most of January, but yesterday, the meme coin lost its support and closed decisively below the 20-day moving average. That is the kind of threshold that has been crucial to the whole bullish thesis, as evident by the TradingView chart.

With that level out of the picture, the setup has gone from a potential continuation to a likely correction.

• Downtrend. The Bollinger Band midline, which had acted as support throughout January, has now failed.

The Bollinger Band midline is at the heart of the action. The Shiba Inu coin had been orbiting that support zone since its $0.00000965 peak on Jan. 4, which came right after a golden cross between the 23- and 50-day moving averages. But instead of going up, the price stopped moving.

SHIB is currently trading at $0.00000839 with the prime target, which is the lower band, at $0.00000718. That is a 14.36% gap, and usually this kind of pattern closes it unless there is a quick recovery, which there has been no sign of so far.