According to data shared by STIX founder Taran Sabharwal, investors holding locked tokens have faced major losses over the past year.

Between May 2024 and April 2025, the average drop in value from over-the-counter (OTC) valuations to current spot prices recorded was around 50%.

Locked Tokens Underperform Amid Market Decline

Sabharwal’s analysis highlighted that many investors missed opportunities to exit at double today’s prices in 2024, as market conditions led to widespread devaluations across major tokens. Unreleased token deals are often made early with long-term expectations, but over the past year, market changes and project-specific issues have led to heavy losses.

Almost all the tracked projects have seen large drops in value. Scroll (SCR) and Blast (BLAST) were hit the worst, falling by 85% and 88% respectively. Eigenlayer (EIGEN) followed with a 75% drop. Other projects like ZKsync (ZK) at -64%, Wormhole (W) at -50%, and io.net (IO) at -48% also saw sharp declines. Jito was the only project to post gains, rising 75% over the same period.

Overall, these early-stage token investors who committed to locked positions faced greater losses than the general crypto market. Data from Artemis shows the broader market declined by an average of 40.7% during the same timeframe, about 20% less than the average loss for locked tokens.

Investors Are Facing More Losses

Further, when factoring in liquidity value over the past 12 months, such holders lost another 31% in opportunity cost when compared to Bitcoin (BTC), which gained 45% during the same period. On top of that, with over $40 billion in locked altcoins set to be released soon, sellers are now facing another 50% discount when exiting through OTC markets.

Based on this data, $1 invested a year ago would now be worth $1.45 in BTC. On the other hand, that same $1 held in an unreleased coin is now worth $0.50. Further, with the current OTC discount, it would sell for only $0.25. This results in a total value loss of approximately 82.8% compared to BTC, and 75% compared to the USD.

The analyst also noted that since most cryptocurrencies are reaching the end of their cliff periods in 2025, discounts are slightly lower now due to shorter vesting durations.

Locked tokens usually come with vesting schedules or restrictions that delay when they can be sold. This leaves holders exposed to price changes during the lock-up period, as they cannot immediately liquidate their holdings.

Q1 worries over Trump’s tariffs didn’t keep crypto prices down for long. Bitcoin’s price surged ahead of the stock market in April. After testing $74,500 on “Black Monday,” Apr. 7, it rebounded to $94,300 by Friday, Apr. 25.

That was a 20.6% market gain for crypto traders who bought the dip in BTC tokens on Apr. 7. However, one larger-cap altcoin sits above the rest.

Why Is SUI Going Up in April?

The weekly candle for BTC on Apr. 25 was +10%. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) was up more than +12%. Ripple (XRP) posted +7% gains. And Cardano (ADA) and Dogecoin (DOGE) posted 18% each.

But Sui network tokens (SUI) lead weekly gains among all Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The Layer-1 smart contract blockchain currency appreciated 70% in trading against the dollar. At one point, SUI skyrocketed by 28% in under 24 hours.

One analyst points to DEEP market penetration in April as a factor. Route 2 FI, a popular Crypto X commentator with 326K followers, wrote on Apr. 23 that a main factor in SUI’s growth is its ecosystem:

“$DEEP up 67% in the past week after tier 1 exchange listings and $WAL is in the top 100.”

$SUI is one of the strongest coins out there. Up 30% today to $2.90 — nearly 50% since the local bottom earlier this month.

What’s driving the bullish sentiment for @SuiNetwork:

-Shaping up to be the trade of the cycle. Many want another L1 winner alongside Solana. Sui is… pic.twitter.com/SPzI8Nm7Bg

— Route 2 FI (@Route2FI) April 23, 2025

DeepBook is a lightweight, powerful DEX engine operating on SUI.

Route 2 FI remarked that SUI is “Shaping up to be the trade of the cycle. Many want another L1 winner alongside Solana. Sui is leading the trend.”

O’Leary Knows How to Pick His Altcoins

As we reported on CryptoPotato earlier in the month, ABC “Shark Tank” judge and business mogul Kevin O’Leary pumped SUI in the first week of April.

He nailed this hot altcoin pick.

Speaking on a podcast, O’Leary said, “I think the hottest ticket right now is Sui. It’s Mysten. That’s a hot new project.” The technical signals on SUI’s price chart were also favorable at the time.

In a speed test last year, CoinGecko found that SUI was the fastest major smart contract blockchain network other than Solana.

XRP’s price posted a +6% green candle for the week on Friday, but other than BNB at +2% and TRX down -1%, it trailed the top 10 crypto assets by market cap. BTC posted +12% gains, ETH +12%, SOL +15%, DOGE +18%, ADA +17%, and SUI an eye-catching +74% candle.

So Ripple’s token may be undervalued at a long-term outlook, and the value buy this weekend for long-term holding crypto investors shopping out of the most favored assets by online and commercial telecom markets.

Here are five recent developments keeping market demand rolling for the massive cross-border payments company’s signature fleet of XRP tokens:

1. XRP Flips Ethereum in Diluted Market Cap

HISTORIC: $XRP FLIPS $ETH

After 6 straight months of outperforming #Ethereum, #XRP has officially become the second-largest asset by fully diluted market cap.

The numbers?

• XRP: $208.4B
• ETH: $192.5B

No hype. No dreams.
Just onchain facts. pic.twitter.com/FcO5p4UCEF

— John Squire (@TheCryptoSquire) April 18, 2025

XRP’s fully diluted market cap is nearly 1/8th of Bitcoin’s in April. That is a remarkable development and a key fundamental metric in the supply/demand economics at play in the daily market price of these currencies.

Bitcoin’s market cap on Friday, Apr. 25, was $1.8 trillion. Ethereum’s was $215 billion, and XRP’s was a distant third at $128 billion.

But, its fully diluted market cap is the market capitalization if all the currency’s tokens were in circulation. By that metric, XRP surpassed ETH for the first time in the final stretch of April.

That’s important over the long term because XRP is supposed to become a scarce digital token with a supply cap of 100 billion coins. Meanwhile, Internet and institutional demand for the asset is high, and its use case is focused yet plentiful with expansion opportunities.

2. Paul Atkins Sworn In As New SEC Chair

Meanwhile, after Ripple’s lengthy and costly lawsuit with the SEC, Paul Atkins assumed office as the new agency Chair on Apr. 21, which is especially important for XRP market prices.

In the private sector, Atkins helped develop best practices for cryptocurrencies for a global strategy, hedge, and regulatory consultancy he founded. This has raised hopes of a final resolution to the lagging Dec. 2020 lawsuit against Ripple Labs.

There are many vast institutional conglomerates that rely on the SEC to do business and won’t invest in something the agency is suing. Only time will tell how many of them are waiting on the government with their eye on Ripple prices.

Patrick Bet-David of the “Valuetainment” YouTube podcast recently said that if the lawsuit is dropped, it will have a big impact on XRP prices going forward.

3. Coinbase Launches CFTC-Regulated XRP Futures

Furthermore, the Nasdaq-listed US crypto exchange Coinbase just launched a CFTC-regulated XRP futures product in April.

This could be a test for demand for XRP from cautious institutional investors and a potential leading indicator for new price support when things with the SEC are finally settled, pat and dry.

But it may be a big hit with leverage traders who find crypto’s volatile markets, with their frequent big double-digit daily swings, not exciting enough without multiplying the risk-reward factor.

Coinbase announced the new feature on X on Apr. 3 and rolled it out on Apr. 21.

Coinbase Derivatives, LLC now offers CFTC-regulated futures for $XRP. https://t.co/omSNu0aEoC

— Coinbase Institutional ️ (@CoinbaseInsto) April 21, 2025

4. Whales Are Buying The XRP Dip in April

“Whales are taking over!” Brett Crypto X tweeted on Apr. 21 to some 90K followers.

Whales are taking over!$XRP trading volume just exceeded 20 million in a single minute.
You see this? This is real utility. pic.twitter.com/YofRSjdRGW

— Brett (@Brett_Crypto_X) April 21, 2025

The last time Brett Crypto X warned about XRP was in the middle of a strong upward trend channel that lasted for months until the financial industry took a haircut, starting in February, over trade jitters.

In one of the threads, a replier begged Crypto X to tell them what blockchain updates software gives them that Star Trek-looking market cap monitor.

Crypto whales have an affinity for trading Ripple and are supporting XRP prices in April. Addresses between 10 million and 100 million XRP moved in April to make up about 1% more of the total share of circulating tokens.

Whale support means greater scarcity and higher exchange prices for a token economy, but add to its risk of future volatility if whales sell.

However, many whales on the blockchain are likely conscious of its economy and other peers and seem to follow Satoshi Nakamoto’s example by waiting months or even years to trade such substantial amounts.

5. Ripple Daily Active Addresses Surge

$XRP network activity jumped 67.50%, with active addresses rising from 27,352 to 40,366! pic.twitter.com/fDiERMIYiz

— Ali (@ali_charts) April 21, 2025

Ripple also saw its daily active addresses surge 67% from 27K to 40K over ten days in mid-April. That’s a more fundamental analysis of the tension against the market valuation of the most recent crypto rally.

Meanwhile, the XRP price chart exhibited an inverse head and shoulders pattern, usually a bullish formation indicating the beginning of a rally in the asset’s price.

The combination of fundamental/market decoupling and bullish technical indicators signals that XRP prices in the last week of April may be hiding bigger green candles.