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The crypto market opened Wednesday with forced selling everywhere. In the last 24 hours, $648.2 million in positions were liquidated as Bitcoin alone carried $280 million of that weight, while Ethereum saw $163.8 million flushed out. The breakdown left the Crypto Fear & Greed Index at 29, a pure fear reading, with altcoins stuck at an index score of 30, signaling no traction outside of majors.
The market cap is pinned near $3.65 trillion, down from October highs, while ETF flows showed a rare divergence with $618.9 million net inflows on Oct. 21. Institutions are buying even as retail panic shows up in cascading long wipeouts.
Prices are not inspiring confidence. Bitcoin trades at $108,010, Ethereum at $3,847, Solana at $184 and XRP at $2.37, each one battling their own chart demons.
TL;DR:
- Bitcoin: $108,000 with a Satoshi-era whale dropping $1.18 billion BTC on Kraken.
- XRP: $2 price floor under direct attack, Bollinger Bands expose breakdown risk.
- Shiba Inu coin: Vitalik Buterin praises Polygon, recalls $190 million SHIB donations.
$1.18 billion Satoshi-era Bitcoin risk hits Kraken
Bitcoin is dwindling around $108,000, but the main highlight is not today’s candle; it is, rather, the sudden reactivation of Owen Gunden, one of the earliest Mt. Gox and Tradehill traders. On-chain data confirms he has begun moving his dormant stash — 10,959 BTC worth $1.18 billion — into top U.S. exchange Kraken.
For context, Gunden is not just a random whale. He was an early arbitrageur between the first crypto exchanges and later sat on the LedgerX board. His BTC traces back to 2013 and has barely moved in over 10 years. Seeing it appear on Kraken now makes the market consider direct selling pressure.
Technicals are not in favor of bulls either. On the weekly chart, Bitcoin is stuck under the crucial 0.5 Fib retracement level at $113,000, just above support at $106,600. Break that, and targets drop immediately — $104,000 and $102,000 come into play, with Fibonacci extensions at $96,000 and $92,000 marking deeper risk zones.
Liquidations confirm how fragile the setup is. Just in the past day, Bitcoin long traders lost $280 million, the largest single slice across all tokens. The irony? ETF flows pumped nearly $619 million back into BTC exposure, meaning that institutions are buying while early holders might be exiting.
This is how Satoshi-era supply collides with modern ETF demand. Traders can read it both ways, but one truth is hard to avoid: these coins still exist, and they can move the market when they surface.
Chart of the Day: $2 XRP price floor looks like luxury
Meanwhile, after hitting $2.19, XRP is trading at $2.37, and it looks like the coin has no cushion left. On the weekly chart, the middle Bollinger Band is at $2.76, while the lower rail is at $1.95. This means XRP can dip under $2 without hitting "oversold."
The daily frame is just as brutal. The price has been stuck at the lower end of the range, at around $2.12, for a while, with every bounce falling well short of the $2.67 midpoint. In Bollinger terms, strength lives above the middle, while weakness tends to show up at the lower end of the scale. XRP is currently stuck at the lower end on both fronts.
The $2 mark is not just psychological, it is also the cluster point for stop losses and leveraged longs. A clean break does not just dip the chart, it flips the switch on liquidations, shorts and sell pressure.
A few weeks ago, XRP was at $3.58 on the upper rail. Now, the same tool says $1.95 is fine. If buyers do not get back to the middle line quickly, $2 will stop being a floor and start looking like a luxury price.
Vitalik Buterin delivers rare Shiba Inu (SHIB) comment
Vitalik Buterin is not a trader, but when he talks about markets, people pay attention. This week, he had nothing but praise for Polygon and its cofounder Sandeep Nailwal, not just for their work with ZK-EVM but also for how they dealt with the $190 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB) donations from 2021.
It is easy to forget the context. During the lockdown, Buterin redirected billions of SHIB tokens into Nailwal's CryptoRelief fund. Nailwal eventually returned a huge chunk of it — about $190 million — to Buterin's Balvi fund for open-source anti-pandemic projects. Vitalik called it a "key contribution" that tied SHIB directly to Ethereum's wider ecosystem work.
For SHIB, the headline is simple — the coin that most outsiders still call a meme once played a central role in funding Ethereum research and pandemic response. Trading at around $0.00001, SHIB is not showing any reaction to the news, but Buterin has just reminded holders that their token has already been part of one of the biggest philanthropic transfers in crypto history.
Evening outlook
The crypto market heads into evening in the U.S. under pressure, with these key points at play:
- Bitcoin (BTC): Needs to hold $106,600; risk zones sit at $104,000-$102,000, extension targets at $96K-$92K.
- Ethereum (ETH): Price at $3,847, but long liquidations at $163.8 million leave bulls exposed.
- XRP: Until the price reclaims $2.67, the charts point straight at $1.95.
- Solana (SOL): $184 with $22.5 million in liquidations — volatility risk into U.S. session.
- Sentiment: Fear index at 29, altcoin index at 30, ETF inflows give structural floor but not confidence.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team