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• XRP changed hands at around $1.50 as the broader market remains mostly bearish.
• SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao has said the firm does not hold $10 billion XRP, but a 9% stake in Ripple Labs.
• Can bulls reclaim $2 amid broader market resilience?

XRP price hovered near $1.47 in Asian trading hours on Monday, Feb.16, 2026, with the cryptocurrency down 8% in the past 24 hours.

The altcoin’s intraday performance came after comments from SBI Holdings CEO Yoshitaka Kitao, who recently clarified the firm’s investment in Ripple and the token XRP.

XRP and a $10 billion SBI holding rumour

SBI, one of Ripple’s major partners, hit headlines last week amid news of its acquisition of a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange.

But alongside this was the circulation of a rumour claiming that the firm holds $10 billion in XRP tokens.

This prompted an X post response from SBI CEO Kitao, who clarified that SBI’s actual position is not in XRP, but a 9% stake in Ripple Labs.

XRP price retreated from highs of $1.60 to around $1.40 amid Kitao’s clarification that the Japanese financial giant’s focus is on Ripple’s blockchain ecosystem.

“When it comes to Ripple Lab.’s total valuation which obviously includes its ecosystem that Ripple has created, that would be enormous. SBI owns more than 9 % of that much,” he posted.

Ripple (XRP) price outlook

XRP’s price action over recent months has largely tracked broader trends in the cryptocurrency market.

Comments by the chief executive of SBI Holdings briefly unsettled traders, before buyers stepped in to defend levels above $1.40.

While the token remains under pressure as Bitcoin consolidates below $70,000, the recent move toward $1.60 and a rebound from weekend lows point to tentative stabilisation.

Sentiment linked to institutional backers such as SBI may support confidence in Ripple and its wider ecosystem.

The group’s expansion into Southeast Asia through recent acquisitions has also raised expectations of increased real-world adoption, which could support demand for XRP.

ETF inflows and regulatory developments are additional factors influencing sentiment.

Speculation around a potential Ripple initial public offering, alongside other positive catalysts, could further lift medium- to long-term confidence among XRP holders.

In the near term, traders are watching a major resistance zone between $1.90 and $2.35.

However, persistent macroeconomic and geopolitical risks could undermine short-term optimism.

In a weaker scenario, XRP may revisit support near $1.20 and potentially test levels below $1.00.

The post XRP price outlook as SBI CEO debunks $10B XRP holdings claim appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The Avalanche (AVAX) token traded around $8.84 as sell-off pressure kept prices lower.
• Bulls have failed to reclaim the $10 mark and fresh declines may push AVAX to lows of $6.30.
• Sentiment across crypto is largely bearish.

Avalanche (AVAX) is facing mounting resistance just below the $9 mark, where persistent bearish pressure has stifled recent recovery attempts.

The altcoin’s bearish outlook aligns with broader cryptocurrency market vulnerability, and having recoiled off the resistance level, technicals suggest fresh losses are likely.

Avalanche price recap

AVAX has navigated a turbulent path over the past month, with prices falling since hitting highs near $15 on January 14, 2026.

The decline, currently putting the token 39% off its 30-day peak, has come amid significant macroeconomic headwinds and sector-wide profit-taking.

Bears have largely taken control despite Avalanche C-Chain’s recent network milestones, including throughput.

According to Ava Labs’ Martin Eckardt, the chain could hit over 4 million gas per second by next week.

Avalanche C-Chain is adding more throughput by the day. Goal is to hit 3.5m gas per second by the end of today and 4m by the end of next week. If everything goes smoothly we will keep pushing, since all the new supply is getting used immediately pic.twitter.com/NvKSn8nqfA

— Martin Eckardt 🔺 (@martin_eckardt) February 12, 2026

The dip to under $8.30 on February 5, 2026, intensified the sell-off pressure, and bulls find it difficult to break higher.

In the last 24 hours, the token fluctuated between a low of $8.64 and a high of $8.96, with trading volume dipping 7% to 254 million.

The past week’s performance tells a similar story of stalled momentum.

AVAX has seen two green days out of seven, with volatility under 1%, as bears defend the $9 threshold amid extreme fear readings on the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.

Avalanche price prediction: Technical picture

From a technical standpoint, AVAX has broken below a key weekly falling wedge pattern, with $9 acting as an immediate supply zone.

Further short-term bearish bias is from the weekly RSI at 30, with a move to oversold conditions hinting at a potential dip before another bounce on a volume uptick.

A notable leg down will rely on key support clusters at $8.50–$8.25, a zone reinforced by recent lows. If prices breach this defense line, bearish targets include lows of $7.50 and $.6.30.

On the other hand, upside catalysts will include a reclaim of $9.38 and a retest of the short-term max pain projection at the $13.90 resistance.

If indecisiveness resolves in favour of bulls, with the weekly MACD forming a bullish crossover, the next target will be the dynamic resistance mark coinciding with the 50-week moving average (at $19.42 as of writing).

The 200-day moving average is offering resistance at $23.69.

Avalanche’s lack of upside momentum mirrors Bitcoin’s struggle below $70,000. Crypto analysts see the overall market sentiment as still largely bearish, with forecasts for a potential dip to $50k for BTC.

Downside momentum will cascade across altcoins.

The post AVAX breaks key pattern as $9 turns into major supply zone appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Perpetual futures allow positions to stay open indefinitely, letting risk build over time.
• Losses increasingly stem from prolonged exposure, not sudden price moves.
• Contract design now plays a bigger role in risk than traditional entry and exit timing.

In 2025, many retail traders realized that futures risk no longer followed a familiar lifecycle.

Positions were no longer defined by clear start and end points, and losses were increasingly shaped by how long exposure was carried rather than by individual market moves.

As non-expiring futures became the default contract type, traders began encountering risk that developed through persistence instead of resolution.

This shift introduced a structural contradiction. Traditional futures contracts expire, forcing positions to be closed or rolled at predetermined intervals.

That process limits how long exposure can accumulate without intervention.

Perpetual futures remove this constraint. By design, they allow positions to remain open indefinitely, provided margin requirements are met.

While this simplifies participation, it also allows risk to build continuously, often without clear signals on price charts.

Educational coverage from Leverage.Trading focused on the structural mechanics of perpetual futures, detailing how the removal of contract expiry allows exposure to persist and why risk can deteriorate over time even when price movement remains subdued.

Risk that accumulates through duration, not volatility

Similar structural patterns have been observed in institutional research on derivatives markets.

For example, the BIS has reported that rising notional exposure and gross market values in derivatives markets reflect how risk can accumulate as positions persist over time, even without dramatic price movements.

As traders adjusted to this structure, several defining properties of non-expiring futures became more widely understood.

These properties did not describe market outcomes, but the conditions under which exposure is allowed to persist:

• Futures contracts without expiry do not force risk to reset
• Exposure remains active until manually reduced or automatically closed
• Structural costs and pressures continue to accrue over time
• Position vulnerability increases through duration, not only volatility
  

Understanding these properties changed how futures risk was assessed.

Instead of evaluating trades solely on entry quality or short-term price expectations, traders increasingly examined whether a position could withstand ongoing structural pressure over extended periods. 

From contract expiry to continuous exposure

This distinction mirrors the contrast between traditional futures markets, such as those operated by the CME Group, and perpetual contract models that dominate crypto derivatives, where contract duration is theoretically unlimited.

The educational explanations focused on how perpetual futures remain aligned with spot prices through continuous adjustment mechanisms, how funding and exposure interact across time, and why prolonged duration can erode position stability even in relatively calm markets.

By considering contract design alongside exposure and time, traders were better equipped to judge whether a futures position was structurally sound before entering it. 

Regulatory bodies such as the ESMA have also warned that prolonged leveraged exposure can magnify losses even when price fluctuations appear modest, reinforcing the importance of understanding contract mechanics rather than relying solely on price signals.

Why futures risk became a time problem

As futures markets expanded and participation broadened, isolated price outcomes became an unreliable way to interpret risk.

Education that clarified how non-expiring contracts carry exposure forward became necessary for understanding why positions often deteriorate gradually rather than failing abruptly.

This emphasis on contract structure reflects a broader shift toward risk-first explanations, a role increasingly associated with Leverage.Trading’s coverage of futures and leveraged markets.

Recognizing that futures risk now accumulates through continuity rather than expiration marked a meaningful change in retail trading behavior.

Explanations that clarify how contract design, exposure, and time interact help traders understand not just how futures positions are opened, but how and why they degrade without a defined endpoint.

The post Perpetual futures changed how retail traders perceived risk in 2025 appeared first on CoinJournal.