According to Santiment market data, crypto whales are scooping up a large chunk of XRP coins with accumulations running into hundreds of millions of dollars in the last 7 days. The wild movement in the crypto asset’s trading volume signals considerable price implications for XRP in the coming weeks. Currently, there are over 350 whale addresses holding more than 10 million XRP each.
The heightened accumulation spree also designates that most XRP holders are confident of Ripple scoring a groundbreaking win in the ongoing legal brawl with the SEC alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered securities offering.
Attorney Joseph Hall, a former SEC official, said in a recent interview that the SEC shouldn’t have brought the lawsuit in the first place. He strongly hinted that Ripple would win, citing the Commission’s lack of grounds for initiating the matter. He even said the commission’s regulatory efforts may be “shut down.”
The contemporary scenario observed in November-December of 2020 demonstrates the most likely direction of future price shifts. After the rapid accumulation of around 1.3 billion XRP at that period, XRP price significantly grew in relation to BTC in the following three months as the crypto asset proved to be a more sturdy cryptocurrency during the period of the overall crypto market slump. Santiment’s analysts suggest that a similar logic can be applied to the expected price dynamics in the ensuing weeks.
The first plausible price drift is the envisioned rapid increase of XRP price if the SEC lawsuit ends with a Ripple triumph. Pundits believe that Ripple does not significantly depend on the current institutional and regulatory uncertainty. As most governments focus their policies on BTC and ETH, XRP could relish a more loyal environment for long-term expansion.
In addition, most XRP long-term investors appear future-oriented and are not willing to open short positions even in the face of minor price upsurges. As the number of XRP short-term holders is also much lower than BTC’s, XRP prices tend to remain more unmoving under such conditions.
The second possible price implication is the likely new phase of the crypto market plunge. As whales shift their preferences in the direction of Ripple’s XRP as opposed to Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana; they envision an overall slip in demand for the major crypto assets.
The major practical benefit of this analysis is the presence of the time lag between the changed whales’ behavior and future price moves. Thus, private investors have taken protective measures, such as increasing their XRP and stablecoin holdings. The close monitoring of XRP accumulation may also be used as an indicator of the overall stability of the crypto market and the likelihood of a negative trend reversal in the future.
