Over the past two months, so-called whales have continued to accumulate XRP, Ripple’s cryptocurrency.
Ripple’s “whale” addresses continue to accumulate XRP
Santiment reveals this with a chart showing that in the past 11 days alone, the total number of XRP held on addresses holding between 1 and 10 million has increased by 2.4%.
#XRPNetwork whales holding between 1M and 10M $XRP have collectively been accumulating, and now hold their highest percentage of the asset’s supply in 2 months. This is the most active tier of non-exchange holders, and currently hold 6.12% of all $XRP. https://t.co/l39gjRe1Jb pic.twitter.com/M71kwL6r7T
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) May 25, 2022
These days, the percentage of all crypto XRP held by these whales is the highest in the past two months, at 6.12%.
Santiment also points out that this accumulation phase seems to start as the price of BTC is back around $30,000, and that of XRP around $0.4.
Until before the implosion of the Terra project, which began on 10 May, the price of XRP had remained consistently above $0.5. In the following days, however, it fell well below $0.4, only to rise again more or less right around this level.
It is worth noting that at the end of January, when there was the first crypto market crash of 2022, the price had only fallen as far as $0.6, after touching $1.4 at the beginning of September 2021.
Thus, the decline had already started several months before and seemed to have come to a halt after the rebound at the beginning of February, which brought it almost back to $0.9.
Until the end of April, it had still managed to stay above $0.7, but since then it has started to fall significantly.
Not counting the all-time high of January 2018, the price of XRP is currently 71% lower than the recent high of September 2021, but it is also 33% lower than the lowest peak of January 2022.
This is therefore a decidedly low price compared to the average price of recent months. One has to go back to March last year to find it at around $0.4.
The effect of the lawsuit against the SEC on the price of XRP
Moreover, in November 2020, before news of the SEC’s lawsuit spread, XRP had touched almost $0.7, so the current price is 42% lower even than it was before the lawsuit became known.
Therefore, if the result of this lawsuit turns out to be positive for Ripple, it is possible to imagine that the price of XRP could return to pre-lawsuit levels.
It is not surprising then that some whales are trying to take advantage of the recent drop in the hope that the current purchase price will turn out to be particularly low.
It is by no means certain, however, either that the outcome of the lawsuit will be positive for Ripple, or that the price of XRP is set to rise in the coming days, weeks or months.
In fact, as has happened in the past, during bear market years the prices of many cryptocurrencies suffer, although it is always possible that for short periods they may rise a little even during a bear market.
Hence, it is possible that some whales have decided to buy with the prospect of selling in the short term in case the price of XRP rises sufficiently to allow them to capitalize on their investment during this period.
Given the typical volatility of cryptocurrency prices, they may have made some sort of bet on a possible even small rise in the value of XRP in the short term.
The post Ripple: whales are accumulating XRP appeared first on The Cryptonomist.
