thecryptobasic.com
The price of $XRP dropped even lower as market participants spotted a potential move from Ripple to sell millions worth of the crypto asset.
After reaching a new high around $0.74 on March 12, $XRP’s price met strong resistance, pushing it lower to the $0.67 level. However, buyers gained the upper hand, helping prices recover as high as $0.7 in the space of a few hours.
Nonetheless, market participants appeared to have been spooked into another sale following a large transaction associated with Ripple.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 140,000,000 #$XRP (95,001,964 USD) transferred from #Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/FoN72t2vUE
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) March 13, 2024
As spotted by the data tracker Whale Alert, Ripple transferred 140 million $XRP ($95 million) to a different address. In turn, the address moved 18.79 million $XRP ($12.7 million), still holding a balance of 169 million $XRP (approximately $114 million) at the time of writing.
Community Speculates on the Reason Behind the Latest Transfer
The reason behind the latest transfer has remained a subject of much speculation, with some in the $XRP community viewing it as a move by Ripple to profit from $XRP’s recent climb. As is widely known by the market, the company controls a large portion of the $XRP supply and periodically sells $XRP for its operational needs.
The transaction history of the receiving address adds to the speculation that the latest transfer is a potential selloff move. The address typically receives a large chunk of the cryptocurrency and moves it out in smaller chunks in a pattern resembling periodic sales.
The latest pattern differs from large on-chain $XRP transfers potentially used for Ripple’s on-demand liquidity (ODL) transactions. In the latter case, the address typically receives $XRP and moves the tokens within minutes of receiving them.
While nothing is conclusive, the market’s reaction to the large transfer has been noteworthy. $XRP dropped as low as $0.67 in the hours following the transfer but has bounced to $0.68 at the time of writing.
Overall, $XRP lost 2% on a day when most cryptocurrencies within the top 10 rallied significantly. To its credit, the coin has maintained an impressive 9% gain in the past week, but the market will have to see more buyers for it to remain convinced of a continued uptrend.