A Labor Day slide in XRP to $1.38 triggered a rare derivatives anomaly: an hourly liquidation imbalance that briefly exceeded 10,535%, as forced long liquidations dwarfed short losses more than a hundredfold. The token has since rebounded, with exchanges split between capital outflows and a speculative buying rush.
A rare liquidation imbalance hits XRP
XRP's drop to $1.38 over the Labor Day holiday set off a cascade of forced margin calls. According to CoinGlass, the hourly liquidation imbalance briefly exceeded 10,535%, meaning the volume of forcibly closed long positions surpassed short sellers' losses by more than a hundredfold.
The decline from XRP's daily high of $1.4150 triggered stop-loss orders among highly leveraged traders. Most market attention was on Bitcoin's $10.72 million and Solana's $4.55 million in daily losses, but the sharper technical storm erupted in XRP's own order book.
Why the sell-off may stay local
An overcrowded set of positions near the Liquidation Max Pain zone drove the long squeeze. On the monthly horizon, XRP's price came close to the Short Max Pain point at $1.4368, where traders who built long positions ahead of an expected breakout concentrated orders sensitive to any price swing.
Now the price sits 3.94% below the short-side pain level, where $9.20 million in bearish positions could face liquidation. By contrast, the Long Max Pain level at $0.9837 remains more than 28.83% below the current price, with $24.29 million in potential liquidations there — a gap that points to a local rather than broader shakeout.
Exchanges split as traders buy the dip
Exchanges reacted in opposite ways. KuCoin and Gate saw open interest fall 5.16% and 4.07%, respectively, as capital moved out. MEXC and Bybit instead became the center of the speculative battle, with MEXC's daily trading volume jumping 118.32% as traders bought the dip during the liquidation event itself.
That buying pushed the price back to $1.3892, and technical indicators moved out of oversold territory. The nearest resistance now sits at $1.4010; a break above it would mark the end of the evening's bearish microtrend.
Source: U.Today
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