'$1.6 Billion in Longs': XRP Validator Reacts as Crypto Selloff Leaves Bulls Bleeding

A broad crypto market sell-off intensified overnight against a potential backdrop of global equity strength, resulting in major long liquidations.

Crypto traders who had expected the market to catch up with the global stock rally were left disappointed as a major price drop caused the largest liquidation event since early February.

Nearly $1.8 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data. Long positions bore the brunt of the damage, with about $1.6 billion in liquidations.

$1.6 billion long liquidations

The crypto market fell early Wednesday even as global stock indexes hit fresh records. Major cryptocurrencies, especially in the top 10, nursed losses between 2% and 6%.

The drop marked the largest single-day wipeout since February 5, with $1.8 billion liquidated and a near-pure flush of long bets, with longs taking $1.6 billion of the total and shorts only $200 million, per CoinGlass data.

Vet (Hussein Zangana), an $XRP Ledger dUNL validator and Director of Community at the $XRP Ledger Foundation, reacted to the selloff, highlighting the $1.6 billion long position wipeout. "$1.6 billion in crypto long positions liquidated," Vet wrote.

$XRP turns 14

$XRP marked its anniversary on June 2, as 14 years ago, Arthur Britto committed the code that created the 100 billion $XRP (previously called XNS).

Reacting to the milestone, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz wrote: "14 years ago, we got together with an idea to build a better way to move value. What happened next was something none of us could have built alone."

Other dates are also historic for $XRP: 15 years ago on October 14, Jed McCaleb made the first code contribution to what is now known as the $XRP Ledger. In there, he used a variable called "Faith" with the comment. Vet highlighted this milestone, adding that "a leap of faith is all it needs."