XRP Price Falls Following Ledger Downtime as Open Interest Hits Monthly Low

Crypto markets are rattled, but one major asset is bleeding particularly hard on Wednesday: XRP.

The fourth-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap is right now the biggest loser out of the top 10 coins and tokens, having dropped by nearly 11% in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Its price currently stands at $2.41.

Zooming out further, the Ripple-linked XRP has shed 21% of its value over a seven-day period. It's tied with Dogecoin for the biggest loss among the top 10 coins during that span.

And open interest for the coin now stands at a monthly low of $3.52 billion worth of XRP, per data from CoinGlass, falling sharply from an all-time high mark of $7.62 billion worth on January 17.

In the world of derivatives, open interest is the collective value of futures contracts that have not yet been settled by traders.

The XRP Ledger, a blockchain for XRP-powered apps as well as a recently rising crop of meme coins, had technical troubles on Tuesday, halting block production for about an hour before recovering. The asset dipped in price on the news.

The coin, one of the oldest in the space, has made headlines again following the election win of President Donald Trump. Ripple, whose founders created XRP and which uses the coin for its payments services, donated to a pro-crypto super PAC during the election cycle. The firm's leaders have also said that they want to actively help shape crypto policy in Washington.

XRP has shot up in value, too, as it has come back into the limelight. The coin is up 377% over the last year, with most of those gains coming since Trump won the election. XRP hit a seven-year high price of $3.38 in January, just two cents shy of matching the 2018 peak of $3.40.

Bitcoiners, though, have accused Ripple of actively working to undermine the government's plans for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, boosting tensions among builders and investors in the space despite the recent surge.

The wider crypto market was in the red Wednesday afternoon, with Bitcoin dropping by 3% over the day—priced at $97,270—and Ethereum down by under 3%. The second largest coin is now trading for $2,767, CoinGecko shows.

Edited by Andrew Hayward