$XRP's recovery stopped around the $1.66 level this weekend, which triggered a rather violent crash.
According to CoinGecko data, $XRP is currently down 7.5%, reaching an intraday low of $1.45.
According to fresh market analysis by pseudonymous trader Dom (@traderview2), the enormous plunge was driven by localized sell-off event on South Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit.
$XRP touched $1.66 and is down -16% since
— Dom (@traderview2) February 15, 2026
Once that level was hit, Upbit started pushing mass amounts of sell pressure on the books
-50M $XRP net sold at market over the last 15 hours
I'd really love to know what goes on over there, any ideas? pic.twitter.com/RPbd4qjVaL
Massive selling
After $XRP reached the $1.66 local high, sell pressure on Upbit exploded.
Over a window of just 15 hours, Upbit users executed a staggering -50 million $XRP in net market sales.
Either a "mega-whale" or a collective panic among South Korean retail traders forced an abrupt exit.
The Upbit decoupling
The Spot Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) chart shared by Dom shows the net difference between buying and selling volume across different trading platforms.
The lines representing Binance (green), Coinbase (yellow), Bybit (blue), and OKX (orange) remain relatively flat or show only shallow declines.
The purple line decouples violently from the pack around the 04:00 mark. It nosedives vertically, crashing from neutral to -50,000,000 on the delta scale.
The line (the spot price) mirrors the Upbit line almost perfectly.
Dom’s forensics revealed that wash trading accounted for less than 0.07% of the activity. "Seems like real retail/institutional spot selling," Dom noted.
There were 12,775 unique trade sizes. The selling intensified between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM KST (Korean Standard Time).
The order book absorbed approximately 2,500 sells per minute, with clip sizes ranging from 100K to 250K $XRP.
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