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Crypto enters the final full week of December, and the biggest signals are coming from two places: public comments from big ecosystem voices and the derivatives board that shows who got trapped and who got forced out.
Three stories sit on top today. First, XRP gets a rare kind of “support” from the Solana crowd — not a tech endorsement, more like a statement that tribal fighting is bad for the whole market. Second, SHIB keeps drifting down the same long track it has been on, and the chart is again flirting with a "new zero" price figure range. Third, Bitcoin prints a very one-sided liquidation event that reads like a cleanup of short exposure, not a new wave of buying.
TL;DR
- Solana-side talk frames anti-XRP tribalism as bearish for the market, and the thread turns into bridge-and-liquidity talk.
- SHIB price sits near $0.00000726 on the monthly view, and another “0” scenario remains on the table just from structure.
- Liquidation heatmap for Bitcoin shows a 17,128% imbalance, with shorts taking the hit.
Solana founder suddenly turns pro-XRP
What started as a messy X thread evolved into one of the clearest indicators of sentiment of the week. Public fighting between ecosystems has been standard practice for years, but the tone this time broke the pattern.
During a heated exchange involving developers and infrastructure discussions, Charles Hoskinson joined conversations with Solana developers and tooling. Rather than dismissing the issue, the response leaned into cooperation. Jokes about bridges, Rust and liquidity markets were not framed as attacks, but rather as inevitabilities.
Solana founder Yakovenko himself took the most direct line, describing fighting XRP, Cardano or adjacent ecosystems as "incredibly bearish." Not inefficient. Not pointless. Bearish.
The framing is important. It shows a shift away from zero-sum thinking and toward a realistic approach driven by capital. Liquidity seeks solutions, not tribal ideology. The thread featured developers discussing various topics like ADA bridges, Solana liquidity and cross-ecosystem deployment in a straightforward manner.
XRP benefits from this immediately. The token has spent years absorbing criticism from Bitcoin purists and smart-contract maximalists alike. Seeing a Solana-aligned voice frame hostility toward XRP as a negative market signal changes the entire debate.
This was not an endorsement of XRP technology. Rather, it was an endorsement of capital behavior. Markets reward interoperability and punish isolation. And Solana, with its recent XRP bridge via Axelar, is definitely at the forefront of this approach.
New 0 for Shiba Inu (SHIB)? Do not act surprised
The SHIB chart speaks for itself the way it has been telling the same story for years.
According to the monthly TradingView structure, SHIB is trading near $0.00000726 after rejecting every meaningful recovery attempt from 2023 to 2025. Each rebound has been lower, shorter and faster to unwind than the previous one.
The current structure shows the price approaching the lower band of its long-term range, with volatility compressing rather than expanding. So, another zero in a price figure is not a shocking scenario here but a continuation scenario.
The key detail is how little the market reacts as SHIB bleeds. Volume spikes no longer trigger a sustained increase in value. Green candles are immediately sold. This behavior usually occurs when the market stops believing in a rescue narrative.
Importantly, nothing new broke SHIB. There was no exploit. There was no scandal. There was no delisting. The asset is simply continuing a multiyear decay pattern that began after its speculative peak. As the screen shows, rallies fail, bases get thinner and the floor keeps lowering.
Acting surprised by another zero would mean ignoring three years of data.
Bitcoin prints 17,128% liquidation imbalance in bear bloodbath
The derivatives board is where the action is today as the liquidation heatmap by CoinGlass shows BTC with a 17,128% liquidation imbalance. The meaning is simple: the pain was on one side. Shorts got forced out far more than longs.
On the same screen, the 24-hour total liquidations are about $197.42 million, with short liquidations near $110.92 million and long liquidations near $86.50 million. The panel also shows a large single liquidation order: $3.26 million BTC/USD on Hyperliquid.
That combination tells a specific story as this was not just a random wave. Bears were too positioned for downside continuation, and the market moved enough to break that setup. Once forced buys start hitting, it becomes mechanical: stops, margin calls, closures — then the imbalance prints.
It is tempting to treat any short squeeze as bullish. But this kind of event is better described as a reset. It removes pressure from one side and makes the next move less crowded. Sometimes that leads to a bounce. Sometimes it leads to chop or a "crab market." What it usually does not do is guarantee a trend by itself.
The cleaner read is: bears lost leverage control in that window, and BTC used the opportunity to clear them out. After that, the market typically needs new fuel — spot demand, fresh leverage or a macro push — to do something bigger.
Crypto market outlook
The crypto market started at the end of December after shorts were flushed, SHIB extended its long-term decline and XRP held its range despite heavy narrative pressure. Considering everything that happened recently, the next points to keep an eye on are:
- XRP: Near $1.93, with support levels at $1.81 and $1.70. Resistance stands near $2, and its daily close there is needed to alter the near-term bearish structure.
- Shiba Inu (SHIB): At $0.00000727 after setting another monthly low, with support at $0.0000065. The key resistance remains $0.00001, and continued trading below the current decimal confirms acceptance of lower levels.
- Bitcoin (BTC): Following a 17,128% liquidation imbalance that removed short exposure, the price is holding near $89,900. Support is expanded and located around $85,200 and $80,600, while resistance sits near $93,900 and $107,100.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team