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It was a strange week in crypto. XRP supply just got thinner, with U.S. spot ETFs locking up 1.20% of the token’s total market cap — $1.52 billion that is now off the open market and in cold compliance storage.
But over in the meme coin land, the SHIB burn rate hit a wall, collapsing 86.14% in 24 hours and throwing cold water on the deflation hype. And then there is Justin Sun, who casually announced he would pay $30 million for an hour-long conversation with Elon Musk.
TL;DR
- XRP ETF holdings now at $1.52 billion, equal to 1.20% of the total market cap.
- SHIB burn rate nosedives 86.14% in 24 hours, dropping to just 749,000 SHIB burned.
- Justin Sun says he would pay $30 million to talk to Elon Musk for 60 minutes.
XRP sees $1.52 billion supply cut, but price reaction is weird
U.S. XRP ETFs have now bought $1.52 billion worth of XRP, according to SoSoValue, locking up 1.20% of the entire market cap — but the token's price has not moved at all. It is a classic mismatch: supply is drying up, but prices are stuck.
This week, inflows added up to just $56.83 million, which is a far cry from December's numbers. Back then, single-week flows regularly crossed $200 million. The big question is whether this is just a temporary slowdown or if it is more of a long-term trend.
But the price is still not cooperating. XRP is stuck near $2.05, brushing up against short-term resistance at $2.10, and looking lost under its 200-day moving average at $2.32. Even with supply cuts from the ETFs, there has been no breakout. Nothing too aggressive there. It is just a range-bound chop.
That is where things get a bit awkward. It could be a delayed bullish setup — ETF accumulation leading a larger move — or it could be a failed bullish catalyst, with not enough retail follow-through to matter.
If XRP cannot break through $2.32 soon, it might fall into its own liquidity trap: fewer tokens available, but fewer buyers showing up. If the impact of an ETF is not priced in real time, market participants are likely to look elsewhere.
Shiba Inu (SHIB) suffers brutal 86.14% metric collapse
In the last 24 hours, SHIB's burn rate dropped by 86.14%, falling to a laughable 749,126 tokens burned, as per Shibburn portal. That is not a typo. It is one of the weakest daily burns in months. For a project that has burned through over 410 trillion tokens in total, a drop like this is unacceptable.
The whole thing is made worse by the fact that the Shiba Inu coin had just printed a golden cross between its 23-day and 50-day MAs, which led to speculation that the price might chase the 200-day average at $0.0000096.
But with daily burns hitting rock bottom and on-chain volume stalling, things are not looking promising.
The price is stuck at 0.$00000841, holding onto the trendline support that was made after Christmas. If it breaks $0.000008, the structure caves and the golden cross gets invalidated before it ever mattered.
To put it simply, SHIB needed deflation to show that it was gaining steam. Instead, it gave holders silence — and that silence is where the market's pullback usually starts.
TRON founder Justin Sun open to paying Elon Musk $30 million
Sometimes, the biggest quote of the day is not about the price chart, but what hides in the reply section.
When prompted by the viral question — “$30M or 24 hours with Elon Musk?” — TRON founder Justin Sun replied without hesitation.
It is not clear if he was joking, pitching a future collaboration, or both.
But Sun has a history of big-spend PR moves, from paying $4.5M for a later canceled lunch with Warren Buffett to inserting himself into every ecosystem from Poloniex to Huobi to TUSD and buying a banana with duct tape for over $6 million. The last one by the way was offered to be sent to space aboard Musk's SpaceX rocket. But that is another story.
What makes this one different is the specificity of the number. It is not the dollar amount — Sun has dropped bigger bags for dumber stunts — but the specificity: sixty minutes for $30 million. It is a valuation of access, not influence. And it is not a meme if you can wire the funds.
In a post-Twitter, X-powered world, where clout markets bleed into token charts, it does not take much for a throwaway comment to trigger reflexive speculation. TRON-Tesla stablecoin? TRX tipping integration on X?
None of that exists yet. But Sun's quote does now — and knowing how quickly crypto can spin narratives into capital, that might be all he needs.
Crypto market outlook
According to CryptoQuant's price decomposition, Sunday and Saturday are still the days with the least movement across all days of the week. It is really on weekdays, especially Tuesdays and Thursdays, that things start to get really volatile.
- XRP: $1.52B ETF absorption is dead weight on the supply side — if flows accelerate, the price will not stay flat for long. A break above $2.32 opens up a $2.5-$2.7 repricing window fast.
- Shiba Inu (SHIB): golden cross now risks invalidation without a burn rate rebound. Without it, the meme coin narrative stalls and the price likely revisits the $0.00000800 coil zone.
- Bitcoin (BTC): faces a triple ceiling near $100,000 — technical, structural, psychological. If Tuesday ETF flows miss expectations, weekend calm could flip into rejection. The next move sets the tone for Q1.
Gamza Khanzadaev
Alex Dovbnya
Arman Shirinyan
Tomiwabold Olajide