On August 10, the price of XRP inexplicably spiked for a brief moment on the Gemini exchange. For a moment, the price of XRP reached an astonishing $50 per coin before quickly crashing back to the same level in spot markets on other exchanges.
Short price hike on Gemini
According to several posts on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), it appears that Gemini experienced a technical issue that caused the XRP price displayed on their exchange to show an erroneous price of $50. However, during that time, XRP was trading around just $0.63.
It appears that Gemini currently has a thin order book after recently re-offering XRP in its spot markets. Users have posted screenshots on social media of the token’s price on the exchange breaking above $1 several times. However, the exchange has been since updated his chart to make it look like the cryptocurrency only rose to $1.50.
Gemini updates XRP chart to reflect $1.50 spike | Source: Gemini
The bump, which took a few seconds to correct, was likely due to low liquidity. According to crypto trading expert Ali Martinez, liquidity was so low that just a $37,000 order was enough to boost XRP prices on the exchange by 2%.
$XRP hit up $50 @Twinbut now they have updated their maps to make it appear #XRP hit $1.60. 😅
Still, the market depth is on this #crypto exchange is very low. Only a $37,000 order is needed to move #Ripple prices by 2%. pic.twitter.com/k5u2GV5PnH
— Ali (@ali_charts) August 11, 2023
Another observer also said that a user accidentally placed a sell order for many tokens at $50, driving up the price on Gemini in the process. A price swing of that magnitude seems highly impossible without some major news or event generating widespread interest in XRP.
After this, at the time of writing, the exchange has announced that it has fully maintained its platform.
the order book is very thin i watched all day at one point there was nothing for sale someone put a lot up for sale for $50.00 and someone must have grease fingered a market order and then they were the proud owner of $50 XRP , this was from a few hours ago pic.twitter.com/W5AoG2eV0r
— John S (@lifebythedrop63) August 11, 2023
Token price trending at $0.63 | Source: XRPUSD on Tradingview.com
Relisting XRP
Gemini is the latest exchange to offer XRP again following Ripple’s partial court victory against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Due to regulatory concerns, the token was initially delisted from several exchanges after the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple in 2020.
However, US judge Analisa Torress reigned in July that XRP sales to the general public do not violate federal laws, so many of these crypto exchanges have gone ahead to offer XRP again on their platforms.
Other crypto exchanges that have also moved to re-offer the token since the ruling include Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp.
At the time of writing, XRP is trading at USD 0.6311, up 33.09% over the past month. Despite the initial euphoria members of the community have experienced as a result of the Gemini glitch, the Ripple ecosystem still has a long way to go before XRP can actually reach $50 in the open market.
Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com