XRP Jumps 4%, Whale Reacts With $69 Million Coinbase Deposit

On-chain data shows an XRP whale has moved a large amount of the asset to Coinbase following a 4% Christmas rally in its price.

After a period of struggle in cryptocurrencies across the board, Christmas has brought back some bullish winds as Bitcoin and company have made some recovery. XRP has been no exception, with its price going up over 4% in the last 24 hours to reclaim $2.31.

Below is a chart that shows how the digital asset has performed during the last few days.

As with any surge in the coin’s value, profit-taking can become a threat as investor gains balloon up. It appears one whale may have fallen prey to such a temptation.

According to data from the cryptocurrency transaction tracker service Whale Alert, a massive transaction has occurred on the XRP blockchain during the past day.

The transfer in question involved the movement of 30,171,667 tokens worth more than $69.2 million at the time the sender executed the move. This is quite a large transaction, so it’s likely that a whale entity was responsible for it.

Whales are investors who carry massive holdings in their wallets. As the influence of any entity on the market goes up, the more coins that they own, whales are considered a key part of the ecosystem.

Because of this reason, their moves can be worth keeping an eye on. They may not always directly influence the price, but they can still inform us about the sentiment among these giants.

Problem is, the anonymous nature of the blockchain means that a lot of the time, it’s not possible to discern what an investor’s intent was behind a move. Luckily, in the case of this XRP whale transaction, one end of the move contains a wallet that can be identified as being tied to a centralized platform.

Here are the address details related to the transfer:

As is visible above, the receiving address for this transaction was a wallet attached to the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The sending address was an unknown wallet, meaning that it was likely the whale’s personal, self-custodial wallet.

Transactions of this kind, where coins flow from self-custody to a centralized exchange, are known as exchange inflows. Generally, one of the main reasons why investors deposit to these platforms is for selling-related purposes, so exchange inflows can have bearish implications for the asset’s price.

it’s uncertain, though, whether taking profits from the latest surge was indeed the goal in mind when the whale made the transaction. It may very well be the case of the investor looking to take advantage of one of the other services that Coinbase provides.