Bitcoin (BTC) and other major tokens lost more than 3% as Tuesday’s rally was met with profit-taking during Asian morning hours Wednesday — in line with expectations.

Overall crypto market capitalization fell 3.3% in the past 24 hours, with BTC sliding to nearly $83,500 from a high above $84,200 a day earlier. Ether (ETH) and Cardano’s ADA fell as much as 5% to lead losses among majors.

XRP showed steady declines, with price action suggesting a plunge in the coming days. Fundamentals showed a positive bump, however, with exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider ProShares amending its spot XRP ETF (to be offered in the U.S.) filing on Tuesday — targeting a launch date of April 30.

Bitcoin selling by large investors has eased as they realize losses, on-chain analysis firm CryptoQuant shared in a note to CoinDesk. Daily bitcoin selling from large investors has declined from a high of 800,000 BTC in late February to a daily rate of about 300,000 BTC.

“The slowdown in selling has come as these investors have been realizing losses since late February amid low prices,” analysts wrote. “However, accumulation by large investors remains weak. Their holdings declined by approximately 30K BTC over the past week, and their monthly accumulation rate dropped from 2.7% at the end of March to just 0.5%—its slowest pace since February 20.”

A slump in majors came as Chinese stocks in Hong Kong extended their losses to as much as 2.9% after Wednesday’s open despite the Chinese economy growing 5.4% in the first quarter.

The extent of tariff impact remains a concern among traders, whose risk-off moves eventually weigh down crypto markets.

«There can be no doubt that fears of a U.S. recession are intensifying, with major institutions revising their forecasts sharply upwards,” James Toledano, Chief Operating Officer at Unity Wallet, told CoinDesk in an email. “Economic growth is forecast to stall at anywhere between 0.1% and 1%, and many believe these risks are already priced into equities, but I am not so sure that we’ve even seen the bottom.”

“It does however feel that Bitcoin’s appeal as a decentralized asset grows, especially as traditional markets face volatility. While Trump’s policies have introduced significant macroeconomic uncertainty, they may paradoxically be fueling Bitcoin’s recent rise—though the risks remain elevated for all markets, crypto included,” Toledano added.

Payments-focused XRP’s immediate prospects look bleak, with its price chart flashing a «rising wedge» breakdown.

A rising wedge comprises two converging trendlines that connect higher lows and higher highs. This convergence suggests that upward momentum is weakening. When the price moves below the lower trendline, it signals a shift to a bearish trend.

XRP dived out of its rising wedge pattern during Wednesday’s early Asian hours, suggesting that the attempted recovery from the April 7 lows near $1.60 has likely lost momentum, allowing sellers to regain control.

According to technical analysis theory, analysts should identify the starting point of the rising wedge as the initial support level following the breakdown, which means XRP can now fall back to $1.60. The cryptocurrency has also fallen below the Ichimoku Cloud, a momentum indicator, on the hourly chart, reinforcing the bearish outlook indicated by the rising wedge breakdown.

Tuesday’s high of $2.18 is the level for bulls to beat to invalidate the bearish outlook.

Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing “AppLayer,” an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure.

Noble’s AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar.

AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains.

The Noble team stated in a press release viewed by CoinDesk that it will launch its Ethereum-compatible AppLayer rollup in the third quarter of 2025.

“Noble plans to unlock its cross-ecosystem potential as EVM applications continue to seek reliable and seamless access to native stablecoin liquidity,” the team wrote. “Noble’s AppLayer will be seamlessly integrated with a number of blue chip DeFi projects born in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Stablecoins have received considerable attention in recent weeks, with the U.S. Congress preparing significant stablecoin legislation later this year. Entities including President Trump’s World-Liberty Financial, banking giant Fidelity, and the U.S. state of Wyoming have also expressed plans to create their own stablecoins.

Noble launched in March 2023 as an application-specific blockchain, or «appchain,» purpose-built for stablecoin issuance within the Cosmos ecosystem. Initially, it aimed to expand liquidity Cosmos by enabling native asset issuance through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, which is the technology used by Cosmos-based blockchains to transfer assets and other data.

Over time, Noble has extended its reach beyond Cosmos, integrating with Ethereum and other ecosystems to facilitate quick stablecoin transfers. Additionally, in March, Noble introduced USDN, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills.

“Building stablecoin issuance infrastructure over the past two years has given us a deep appreciation for the transformative potential of stablecoins to onboard the world to crypto,” said Jelena Djuric, co-founder and CEO at Noble, in the press release. “The Noble AppLayer, built with Celestia’s technology underneath, finally gives builders the freedom to build highly scalable and performant stablecoin-native applications.”

Read more: How a Ph.D. Student’s Research Paper Turned Celestia Into $345M Blockchain Project Overnight