Morning Crypto Report: Ripple CEO Forces XRP Reality Check for Coinbase, Shiba Inu (SHIB) Soars 5%: Fakeout Next? $444 Million in Bitcoin Land on Binance

Friday’s bounce comes with weekend nerves: Ripple’s CEO checks Coinbase on XRPL basics, SHIB pops 5% and traders whisper “fakeout,” while $444 million in BTC hit Binance for a deposit.

Bitcoin is green again after a CPI whipsaw. BTC climbed back to $87,836, up about 1% over 24 hours after briefly dipping under $85,000, and later prints on Binance showed it near $88,279. Even with that bounce, Bitcoin remains more than 30% below its October peak above $126,000. Ethereum showed more strength, rising 3.4% to $2,938, while SHIB added 5%.

TL;DR

• Ripple’s CEO jumps in as Coinbase flags XRPL delays during the upgrade rollout.
• Shiba Inu (SHIB) pops 5% on the rebound, but the chart setup still looks like a possible bull trap.
• Bitcoin OG sends 5,152 BTC worth about $444.73 million to Binance, putting weekend sell-pressure risk on the radar.

Ripple CEO corrects Coinbase about XRP Ledger

Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, stepped into a very specific mess as Coinbase pushed an incident banner tied to XRPL and labeled it “Ripple Network,” but the CEO was not letting that framing slide in public, especially on a day when the XRP Ledger just rolled out a meaningful network change.

In the screenshot, Coinbase’s status not only framed it as “Ripple Network – Delayed Transactions,” but said it was investigating delayed sends and receives, and added that buys, sells and fiat withdrawals/deposits were not affected, which is exactly why the wording mattered: users were not mad about trading, they were mad about moving XRP in and out.

XRPL validator Vet tied the timing to the fixDirectoryLimit amendment activation and directly told Coinbase to run the current XRPL version on its nodes, and Ripple CTO Mayukha Vadari piled on with the same correction: stop calling it “Ripple Network,” because this is the XRP Ledger and exchange infrastructure, not Ripple’s private rails.

The upgrade itself is simple: the new amendment removes an old hard ceiling that could make a busy ledger “folder” fill up, so transactions could fail even when users had the XRP to pay. Now the ledger relies on owner reserves instead, meaning you need to lock XRP to create objects, and that cost is what keeps spam in check.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) jumps 5%: Bull trap?

The 5% move for the popular meme coin, SHIB, looks better in a headline than it does on the five-minute chart. The TradingView screenshot shows the Shiba Inu coin around $0.00000739 on Dec. 19. 

Earlier in the same window, the chart shows a spike, a fast drop, then a long grind lower that pressed the price toward the $0.000007 area before the rebound brought it back into the midrange and then stalled into sideways chopping. 

That is why it may be seen as a bull-trap setup: the bounce is real, but follow-through is not automatic.

Why? Macro is still driving the tone. Look at Bitcoin – it jumped toward $89,000 after CPI came in softer than expected, then got sold within hours and crypto followed equities as they rolled off intraday highs. CME FedWatch odds only nudged to 27% for a January cut and 57% for March. 

The backdrop still favors short rallies that fade, and Shiba Inu (SHIB) is no exception.

$444 million Bitcoin transfer stuns Binance

The biggest single number today came from a wallet move. The on-chain records by Arkham revealed an address many attribute to a Bitcoin OG sending over 5,152 BTC to the world’s largest crypto exchange deposit, worth about $444.73 million, and it also shows a 0.01 BTC transfer worth $858.96 on the same destination path, matching the common test-then-send pattern used before moving size.

A deposit does not guarantee a sale, but it creates instant sell optionality, and that optionality matters into a weekend where crypto market participants already expect fast reversals. 

Interestingly, the same whale cluster still holds more than $800 million in BTC across wallets and possibly more than that, so the headline transfer is big, but not the full picture. The market will watch whether the coins sit parked, get split or move into hot-wallet activity.

This does not mean an instant dump, but it changes the feel of the rally. A deposit converts long-term custody into immediate sell optionality on the biggest venue, exactly while BTC is trying to prove it can hold above the mid-$87,000 area and push back into the $89,000 zone without fadinf again.

Yes, the deposit can read as a partial distribution into a rebound, or routine movement that ends up parked – but on the chart, it lands at a point where sellers have already shown up once, which is why the price reaction matters as much as the transfer size.

Crypto market outlook

The next chapter for the crypto is likely be “bounce-first, fade-later unless BTC cleanly reclaims $89,000. Watch whether the 5,152 BTC Binance deposit triggers follow-through selling and whether XRP withdrawals normalize after the XRPL amendment.

• Bitcoin (BTC): Dumped after the CPI pop toward $89,000, dipped under $85,000, then bounced to $87,836, but $89,000 remains the main line – above it looks like reclaiming, below it looks like another sellable rebound.
• XRP: Muted versus BTC/ETH, with attention stuck on exchange rail, which means that status updates are the real price driver until the Coinbase delay headline dies.
• Shiba Inu (SHIB): Up 5% with price around $0.00000739 on Binance after a deeper dip, basically needs extension beyond that pivot or it stays a pop-and-stall setup that is a textbook bull trap.