Dogecoin Drops, Bitcoin Steady Ahead of US CPI

XRP outperformed bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, with dogecoin (DOGE) leading losses in the past 24 hours before the release of U.S. inflation data later Wednesday.

Bitcoin (BTC) remained steady around $98,000, while ether (ETH), BNB Chain’s bnb, and Cardano’s ADA fell by as much as 2%. Memecoin DOGE dropped 4%, even as shiba inu (SHIB) and floki (FLOKI) rose 1%. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 added 0.69%.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is due to release November’s consumer price index (CPI) at 8:30 a.m. ET (13:30 UTC). Federal Reserve Chair Powell has said that incoming economic data will heavily influence interest-rate decisions —which may impact crypto markets in the new year. The previous month’s data showed that inflation remained a concern for the Fed.

XRP, meantime, surged as much as 7%, reversing losses since Monday, after related company Ripple Labs said it had received “final” regulatory approval to offer the RLUSD stablecoin in the U.S.

The stablecoin will be issued on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum networks, and could be used on decentralized finance (DeFi) applications that involve XRP, boosting the ecosystem.

Before the announcement, deposits from XRP whales to exchanges hit a six-month high early Tuesday, indicating short-term bearish pressure. Over the past 30 days, more than 2.66 billion XRP tokens moved to Binance, data from CryptoQuant shows. That is the most since April 2024.

“The large inflows suggest that big XRP holders are actively transferring XRP over the network,” CryptoQuant independent analyst maartunn said in a post. “Whale deposits can often signal potential shifts in strategy, as these players have significant amounts of assets at their disposal.”

Large movements of XRP to Binance preceded price drops in November 2023 and April 2024.