Solana’s SOL token is poised for a potential price swing of almost 6% after some large investors, or whales, dumped their holdings ahead of the U.S. non-farm payroll (NFP) report due later Friday.

This estimate comes from Volmex’s one-day implied volatility index (IV) for SOL. At press time, the index showed a one-day reading annualized at 109.70%, indicating an expected 24-hour price volatility of 5.74%. (The daily figure is derived by dividing the annualized volatility by the square root of 365, the number of trading days in a year.)

A movement that size represents moderate volatility, especially considering that the cryptocurrency has experienced several days of 6% or higher volatility since early March, according to data from CoinDesk.

In other words, the market is likely to be volatile, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Whale selling

Data tracked by blockchain sleuth Lookonchain shows several whales unstaked and dumped SOL worth $46.3 million into the market.

Large offloading of coins by whales often leads to bearish price action. However, the amount sold early today equates to 0.97% of the cryptocurrency’s 24-hour trading volume of $4.7 billion.

So, it’s no surprise that SOL is trading little changed at around $116, having printed a low of $112 on Thursday. Broadly speaking, the cryptocurrency has been in a downtrend since reaching a high of $295 on Jan. 19.

Focus on payrolls

The U.S. jobs data, scheduled for release at 12:30 GMT, is forecast to reveal that the economy added 130,000 jobs in March, slowdown from February’s 151,000 and well below the 12-month average of 162,300, according to FactSet.

The median estimate for the jobless rate for March is is 4.2%, the highest since November and up from February’s 4.1% reading. Average hourly earnings are forecast to have risen 0.3% month-on-month, matching February’s pace.

A weaker-than-expected figure will likely validate renewed pricing for four 25-basis-point interest-rate cuts this year, potentially sending risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, higher.

Filecoin’s FIL token spiked by 30% after South Korean exchange Upbit started listing FIL trading pairs.

The token rose to as high as $3.49 from $2.71 on Coinbase and was recently trading around $3.00. Daily trading volume increased by 68% to $303 million, according to CoinMarketCap.

Upbit said in a tweet that the FIL/KRW trading pair went live at 07:30 UTC.

Tokens listed on South Korean exchanges often trade at a premium because strict financial controls in Korea means that it is difficult for capital to flow in and out of the country, leading to a lack of arbitrage opportunities.

U.S. crypto giant Coinbase Institutional said on Friday it had submitted a filing to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to roll out futures contracts tied to Ripple’s closely related XRP token.

«We’re excited to announce that Coinbase Derivatives has filed with the CFTC to self-certify $XRP futures — bringing a regulated, capital-efficient way to gain exposure to one of the most liquid digital assets,» it said in an X post. «We anticipate the contract going live on April 21, 2025.»

According to the filing, the XRP futures will operate as a monthly, cash-settled, margined contract, trading under the ticker XRL. Each contract mirrors XRP’s price, settled in USD, and represents 10,000 XRP — roughly $20,000 at the current $2 per token valuation.

Traders will have flexibility, with contracts available for the current month plus the following two, though a safeguard halts trading if XRP’s spot price swings over 10% within an hour.

When launched, the product will be the second after Chicago-based Bitnomial’s CFTC-regulated XRP futures that went live in March. XRP prices are down 2% in the past 24 hours, in line with a broader market drop.