Analyst Reveals the Real Reason Behind XRP's Sharp Price Drop Yesterday

According to independent analyst Dom (@traderview2), who published a multi-location order book heat map and cumulative volume difference data (CVD) for X, the sudden sell-off of XRP by more than -15% on July 23 was mainly due to strong selling activity on the Upbit exchange in South Korea. “The Upbit market in South Korea has chosen violence today on XRP,” he wrote, quantifying “Over 75 million XRP have been sold on the market in the last 24 hours.” Why did XRP collapse yesterday? The spot CVD chart shared by Dom analyzes net buying and selling activity in the market at major exchanges. While the CVD lines of Binance, Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, Kraken, and Bitstamp remain relatively flat or slightly negative, the CVD of Upbit ( the purple line ) has plummeted almost vertically down to about -75 million XRP during this period, reflecting the daily drop in the average spot price depicted alongside. The analyst stated: “Upbit has brought you the pump & dump phenomenon… The order book is quite empty, hence there has been a quick drop today.”

The simultaneous order book heatmap of Binance, Coinbase, Binance USDⓈ-M futures, and Kraken shows a sharp decline from a recent high of over $3.5 to the mid $3.1 range during the trading session. Liquidity is clearly quite thin at the current price level, with buy orders concentrated just below, aligning with Dom’s observation that the depth of sell orders has amplified the impact of the concentrated flow of funds into Upbit. He added that “We have reached some bid levels around $3, a level that I am monitoring,” while emphasizing that “I think we want to hold that area to maintain the short-term bullish structure.”

Similar sources also emphasize that the South Korean market had dominated in the previous bullish phase. On July 11, Dom suggested that the previous surge was due to domestic demand: “The XRP pump mainly comes from Koreans on Upbit. The Binance market is lagging behind. All other exchanges are basically inactive (Coinbase hardly participated ). Nearly 30 million dollars worth of XRP was purchased on the top exchanges in the past hour.” The prior concentrated buying was later offset by the latest wave of concentrated selling, creating what he describes as a “pump AND dump” chain focused on Upbit’s order flow. In summary, the data shows a two-phase movement, where the initial spot accumulation from South Korea drove prices up, followed by a strong wave of liquidation from South Korea a few days later, causing the global order book to become fragile, accelerating the decline of XRP. Dom’s current focus is on whether the buying price determined around the $3 level can stabilize prices and maintain the short-term bullish structure he mentioned. Considering the published charts, that support zone remains a key level in the short term. Notably, the derivatives position has intensified this move: CoinGlass data shows that long positions in XRP futures were liquidated for about $82.8 million yesterday, ranking just behind Ether and ahead of Bitcoin, with the total liquidation value of longs in the market exceeding $630 million. This mandatory reduction in leverage may have increased spot selling pressure as successive margin calls turned into additional market sell orders, reinforcing the rapid downward momentum that was initiated on Upbit.