XRP Whales Are On The Move, What Are They Up To?

On-chain data shows the XRP whales have made some moves in the past day. Here’s what these humongous entities have been up to.

According to data from the on-chain transaction tracker service Whale Alert, three large transactions have been spotted on the XRP network during the last 24 hours.

The first of these transfers involved the movement of about 28.7 million XRP across the blockchain, worth around $14.7 million when the transaction went through.

Given the scale of the move, it’s likely that a whale entity was behind it. Owing to their large holdings, the whales can be influential beings on the network, so their moves can be worth following, as they may cause noticeable fluctuations in the market.

What a whale’s transfer may imply for the cryptocurrency depends on the intent behind it. Below are the details regarding this first XRP whale transfer, which may shed some light on its context.

As is visible above, the sending address in the case of this XRP whale transaction was an unknown wallet. At the same time, the receiver was an address attached to the cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp.

“Unknown wallets” refer to addresses unaffiliated with any known central entity. As such, they are generally the investors’ personal, self-custodial wallets.

In this transfer, it would appear that the whale shifted their coins from their address to Bitstamp, suggesting they wanted to use one of the platform’s services. This can include selling, although it’s not a certainty.

If the whale was looking to sell, the transfer could naturally have bearish consequences for the asset. Just like this transfer, the second one from the last 24 hours was also an exchange inflow, this time towards Binance.

This transaction involved an amount of 100 million XRP ($51.3 million), making it almost four times the size of the previous one. This may be a troublesome sign for the cryptocurrency if these whales sell here.

However, the third and the latest of the whale transactions could offset a bit of negative effect (if any) that may arise out of these exchange inflows.

Unlike the other two whale transactions, this is an exchange outflow transaction, going out of Binance and toward an unknown wallet. A closer inspection of the addresses involved reveals that the same Binance address took part in both this and the second transfer.

This could suggest that the whale who made the large deposit to Binance has now made this withdrawal. The investor has only withdrawn 20.6 million XRP ($10.5 million), which is significantly less than the amount they deposited earlier.

XRP has dived around 5% in the past day, and the coin’s price is now floating around $0.5. Given this trend, it’s possible that at least some of the amount the whales deposited today was for selling.