[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] XRP has slid to the $1 level, with investors' stop-loss selling expanding at the fastest pace since the 2022 selloff.

On June 28 (local time), blockchain outlet CryptoSlate reported that XRP fell to $1.02 on June 27, the lowest price since February.

Although prices rebounded, market anxiety did not ease. The current move is less like a simple pullback and more like a phase where leverage liquidations, shrinking derivatives trading and rising loss-taking appear at the same time. The $1 level has also emerged as a key price zone where the market is testing support after months of declines.

The direct shock appeared first in derivatives markets. As XRP slid to around $1.07 on June 25, about $9 million in long positions was liquidated. That was the biggest daily loss since Feb. 5. On Binance, roughly half of the total, about $4.5 million in XRP long positions, was closed.

Open interest also fell quickly in the aftermath. Binance's XRP open interest dropped to about $205 million, the lowest since March 22. It also declined to about $185 million on Bybit. The simultaneous contraction on both exchanges shows some investors voluntarily reduced positions, while others exited after being liquidated.

Trading appetite also cooled quickly. XRP open interest across tracked exchanges fell to about $2.34 billion. Futures turnover was about $2.84 billion, down more than 90 percent from levels above $30 billion a year earlier.

Loss-taking also steepened. Based on Glassnode, XRP's 90-day moving average profit-and-loss ratio fell to 0.33, the lowest since August 2022. The figure means investors are trading at about 3 in losses for every 1 in profits. It indicates more movement while accepting losses than profit-taking trades. The market pointed to this as showing that a 'capitulation' phase is intensifying as investors who endured long declines give up positions.

The problem is that such liquidations are not an immediate signal of a rebound. Clearing fragile leveraged positions can reduce the risk of additional cascading liquidations. But without spot buying to support it, the ability to defend XRP below $1 could weaken. There is also still a chance that investors who bought near recent highs will sell near break-even.

Risk-adjusted returns were also weak. On Binance, XRP's 30-day Sharpe ratio fell to -0.29, while the Sharpe Z-score was about -1.57 and 7-day Sharpe momentum was about -0.09. That signals recent rebound attempts were not strong enough to change the trend, and traders who were liquidated or closed contracts may be reluctant to rebuild positions.

Some derivatives indicators, however, show overheating has eased somewhat. On Binance, XRP perpetual futures versus spot trading imbalance was about 0.51, and the 30-day Z-score was about 0.17. The share of perpetual futures remains large, but the skew is not extreme versus the past month's average. The chance that a single sharp imbalance triggers another large wave of liquidations has fallen, but spot demand to support a recovery has not been confirmed.

XRP weakness is also intertwined with a broader market decline. Bitcoin slipped as low as $58,100 at one point on June 26 before partly recovering to around $59,000, while Ethereum fell to around $1,550, extending losses for a third straight session. Total cryptocurrency market capitalisation also dropped below $2 trillion alongside the fall in bitcoin.

Breadth across the market also worsened. Of 85 non-stablecoin assets tracked by CryptoRank, 87 percent fell in June and only 13 percent rose. The average return was -8.6 percent and the median was -12.3 percent. In the second quarter, only two of the 10 large non-stablecoin assets posted positive returns: Hyperliquid's HYPE and Tron’s TRX.

In this situation, the likelihood of funds rotating into XRP from other cryptocurrencies is also limited. When the broader market is weak, the tendency can strengthen to prioritise securing cash-like assets rather than viewing sharply fallen large tokens as targets for bargain buying. As a result, even if liquidation pressure eases in the short term, whether spot demand actually emerges to hold the $1 level remains a key variable for XRP.