TL;DR
- Although the entire cryptocurrency market has been hit in the past several days, some altcoins are performing worse than others.
- Interestingly, XRP is among the biggest losers even though the company behind the token got some big and positive news this month.
The middle of the graph above demonstrates a significant yet brief increase to $2.6 on March 19 when Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse effectively announced the end of the lawsuit between his company and the US SEC. This announcement was eagerly anticipated by the XRP community for over four years.
However, it turned out to be a classic ‘sell-the-news’ event, as the asset’s price quickly plummeted and has struggled to regain momentum. Even last week’s confirmation of the lawsuit closure failed to produce a positive impact on XRP’s price.
In fact, the third-largest cryptocurrency has suffered a decline below $2.1. Since the March 19 peak, it has lost approximately 20% of its value and is nearing a critical support level at $2, which could indicate further difficulties ahead. This situation persists despite the favorable news surrounding Ripple’s legal standing.
The broader market correction, which has seen Bitcoin fall to $82,000, Ethereum to $1,800, and Solana to $125, has been cited as a potential cause for XRP’s downturn. Yet, out of the top 20 altcoins, XRP has been particularly hard-hit, suffering a 14.5% loss on a weekly basis, while Bitcoin is down by 5.5%, Solana by 9%, and Ethereum by 11.6%.
Beyond the mentioned ‘sell-the-news’ phenomenon, another factor contributing to XRP’s significant decline may be traced back to the recent activities of large investors or ‘whales’.
These large market players embarked on a buying spree following the US elections, capitalizing on XRP’s rise from $0.6 to $3.4 within just a few months. However, their current strategy appears to involve selling off substantial quantities of XRP, which may catalyze an even more drastic price drop.
Whales offloaded 1.12 billion $XRP in the last 48 hours! pic.twitter.com/DlxE1v1NI5
— Ali (@ali_charts) March 30, 2025
In just 48 hours, the 1.12 billion XRP sold off represents a market value exceeding $2.3 billion, which amounts to nearly 2% of the asset’s total market cap.
The original post, Why Is Ripple (XRP) the Worst-Performing Crypto Asset Out of Top 20?, elaborates on these developments.
