Crypto Selloff Liquidates $1.6 Billion in Longs as XRP Turns 14

A broad crypto market sell-off intensified overnight, leaving traders who had bet on digital assets finally catching up with global equities in a familiar state of regret. Nearly $1.8 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data, marking the largest single-day liquidation event since early February. Long positions, predictably, took the worst of it.

The crypto market fell early Wednesday even as global stock indexes hit fresh records—correlation, as ever, doing retail traders no favors. Major cryptocurrencies, especially in the top 10, nursed losses between 2% and 6%. The drop marked the largest single-day wipeout since February 5, with $1.8 billion liquidated and a near-pure flush of long bets: longs took $1.6 billion of the total, while shorts only $200 million, per CoinGlass data.

$1.6 billion in crypto long positions liquidated. Stop trading, folks. pic.twitter.com/ghDmTRMKI6 — Vet (@Vet_X0) June 3, 2026

Vet (Hussein Zangana), an XRP Ledger dUNL validator and Director of Community at the XRP Ledger Foundation, reacted to the selloff with characteristic restraint, highlighting the $1.6 billion long position wipeout. "$1.6 billion in crypto long positions liquidated," Vet wrote.

XRP marked its 14th anniversary on June 2, fourteen years after Arthur Britto committed the code that created the 100 billion XRP (previously called XNS). Reacting to the milestone, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz wrote: "14 years ago, we got together with an idea to build a better way to move value. What happened next was something none of us could have built alone."

Other dates also carry weight for XRP. Fifteen years ago on October 14, Jed McCaleb made the first code contribution to what is now known as the XRP Ledger. In there, he used a variable called "Faith" with the comment. Vet highlighted this milestone, adding that "a leap of faith is all it needs."