XRP plunged 37% in a single Bitstamp candle on Saturday, Aug. 22, but the move barely showed up on other exchanges. A real market-wide liquidation wave hit at the same time, yet the two events measure different things, and open interest in XRP remained largely intact after the dust settled.
A wick, not a crash
XRP crashed 37% on Saturday, Aug. 22, but only on Bitstamp. Bitstamp's XRP/USD pair reached a one-minute high of $1.69739 at 05:03 UTC, then fell to $1.06689 in the 05:10 candle, a 37.15% high-to-low move. That candle closed at $1.44837, recovering most of the plunge before the minute ended.
Other venues showed nothing close to that range. Kraken's ticker put the rolling 24-hour move at a $1.70 high against a $1.3359 low, a 21.4% range. OKX showed a $1.70 high and $1.3757 low, a 19.1% range. By roughly 01:50 UTC on Aug. 23, ten major spot markets had clustered near $1.49 to $1.50 — a sample that isn't exhaustive and doesn't reconstruct each venue's recovery path, but shows major spot prices had converged after Bitstamp's anomalous low.
The liquidation wave was real, but not XRP-specific
A separate, market-wide leverage flush hit around the same period. A KuCoin relay published at 05:32 UTC cited CoinGlass data showing $523 million in crypto liquidations over one hour, including $448 million of longs and $74.76 million of shorts. That figure covered the entire market, not XRP alone.
Estimates for the wider 24-hour total varied. An early relay reported $1.801 billion in liquidations. BeInCrypto later cited $1.35 billion. A TechFlow report published at 15:23 UTC put the figure at $1.244 billion, with XRP's own 24-hour liquidations near $123 million.
Substantial XRP derivatives exposure remained after the drop. CoinGlass showed $3.66 billion in open interest at 01:50 UTC on Aug. 23, against $18.08 billion in 24-hour futures volume and $5.10 billion in spot volume. A funding table updated at 12:00 UTC on Aug. 22 was sharply divided across venues rather than uniformly neutral.
Without matched open interest and funding readings from before, during, and after the move, the size of any leverage reset can't be measured cleanly.
Source: CryptoSlate
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