99,999,980 XRP at Go: What's Going On?

XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has seen a surge in large-holder activity in recent days.

In recent hours, blockchain data tracker Whale Alert reported a massive transfer of 99,999,980 XRP, valued at nearly $234,448,405. This transaction is part of a recent rise in large XRP transfers seen in the last 48 hours.

Whale Alert reports, "99,999,980 XRP worth $234,448,405 transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet."

The recent activity has sparked considerable speculation and interest on the market. In addition to the 99,999,980 XRP transfer, there have been other large XRP transactions. For example, a transfer of 39 million XRP, worth around $95 million, was also reported within the last 24 hours. Whale Alert provides the following information: "39,430,019 XRP worth $95,502,372 was transferred from unknown wallet to Coinbase."

In the past day, 200 million XRP worth $485,376,345 were exchanged between unknown wallets.

In addition, 380,000,000 XRP worth $915,171,133 were transferred from Ripple to an unknown wallet, while another transaction transferred 60,000,000 XRP worth $145,498,224 between unknown wallets.

What's going on?

While the wallets' identities are unknown, such large transactions might signal activity related to whales, exchanges, custody platforms or institutional investors.

The transactions could be over-the-counter (OTC) deals, which take place outside of cryptocurrency exchanges. Entities might be redistributing XRP across wallets for security or strategic reasons.

Whales could potentially be looking to accumulate XRP at a discount. XRP's price has dropped in the last two days; it saw profit-taking at highs of $2.485 on Dec. 12 and, at writing time, was down 4.66% in the last 24 hours to $2.33.

The accumulation of XRP by whales suggests a bullish outlook, as these large holders might be preparing for anticipated developments.

On Tuesday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that the company's highly anticipated RLUSD stablecoin had received regulatory approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

Ripple announced ambitions in April to enter the rapidly expanding stablecoin industry with its strictly regulated, short-term U.S. government bond-backed cryptocurrency.