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Crypto markets staged an impressive recovery on Friday, but XRP outpaced the rest of the top 10 coins by market cap, posting an initial 18% rebound before a slight correction pared its gains to a 24-hour 12% profit.
Ripple’s premier token sank to as low as $1.14 at around 1:00 AM GMT Friday, off of a dreadful market selloff that also dragged down the rest of the crypto market. However, a lack of selling pressure helped the coin bounce back strongly during US trading hours. Bitcoin also rose back above $70,000, reversing part of Thursday’s decline ahead of the weekend.
XRP prices climbed back above $1.40 in less than 24 hours, the largest price recovery among large-cap digital assets. According to data from CoinGecko, XRP reached an intraday high of $1.53, a gain of more than 17% over 24 hours. The move followed intense volatility that had briefly made it the weakest performer among the top valued cryptos.
XRP sellers regret as gains topple BTC comeback
The rebound came after a wave of forced liquidations swept through the market late Thursday. XRP’s drop to the $1.14 area unwound $30 million worth of long positions in the period. Per CoinGlass’ latest update, a price reversal has taken away $17 million from short bets over the past day.
Furthermore, derivatives data revealed a split between smaller traders and larger accounts. On Binance, the overall account-based short/long ratio stood at 2.31 as of Saturday morning trading hours. That meant the number of short bets was twice as many as long positions, suggesting most retail traders had banked on a continued price fall.
Binance’s top trader long/short ratio for positions was around 0.992 because more traders on the platform were net short during the drop. The divergence suggested the downturn ran into a market where smaller players held their downward predictions longer, while long-term traders defended XRP’s support.
According to market analyst EGRAG Crypto, the selloff seen earlier in the week was caused by mechanical position clearing, with buyers waiting for a market bottom to jump in. Once leveraged longs were forced out, selling pressure thinned in the classic “post-washout” snapback that provided a pathway for XRP bulls to thrive.
XRP whales also helped actualize the price comeback, with wallets containing between 100 million and 1 billion XRP taking more than 230 million tokens for $335 million over 48 hours. The scale of accumulation spells a strong conviction among large amount token holders during the downturn.
Moreover, first-time transacting addresses on the XRP Ledger jumped 51.5% during the same 48-hour window to reach 5,182, the highest percentage uptick in the last two and a half months. Market sentiment platform Santiment had tracked discussions among traders during the decline, noting unusually high activity on the XRP Ledger as prices stabilized.
📈 Crypto markets are rebounding, but $XRP's price has been on a particularly huge tear. Since bottoming out below $1.15 just under 18 hours ago, the #4 market cap has now recovered to back above $1.50.
😱 Panic sellers should have stopped to notice the massive activity on the… pic.twitter.com/3y0eyGxpo2
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) February 6, 2026
“Panic sellers should have stopped to notice the massive activity on the XRP Ledger as speculators were discussing whether the coin would fall below $1.00,” Santiment said in a recent X post.
XRP resistance levels in focus, $1.80 next target
On Saturday morning, XRP traded near $1.46, just under the $1.49 resistance area it had previously breached the previous day. According to several chartists on Crypto Twitter, a failure to clear $1.58 before Monday could restart a selling spree in the coming week.
Ripple and its ecosystem just recently launched permissioned domains, as Cryptopolitan reported earlier this week. But traders are now focused on whether XRP can hold above the mid-$1.40 range after one of its sharpest recent reversals.
XRP could slip back below $1.37 and slide toward $1.28 in that scenario, weakening the recovery structure and undermining recent bullish momentum. However, a successful charge above $1.6 could take the fifth-ranked coin by market cap back to its January 2026 highs.
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