Ripple and Whales Move 350M+ XRP As Price Drops Below $0.46

Ripple moved up to 120M XRP tokens in two separate transactions, leveraging different addresses to eventually send the assets to several exchanges.

There has been a reawakening of large XRP transactions in recent times, as Ripple and other XRP whales recently shuffled over 350M tokens ($160M) within hours. These transactions have coincided with the market-wide turbulence which has battered XRP below the $0.46 price level for the first time in 4 weeks.

Ripple Moves 120M XRP

As highlighted by Whale Alert, a whale-tracking resource, Ripple’s first transaction occurred on April 24, 18:17 (UTC) and involved the transfer of 50M XRP ($22.8M) to another address. Investigations show that the recipient address is also owned by Ripple.

🚨 🚨 50,000,000 #XRP (22,879,254 USD) transferred from Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/CpJ5VqkIY2

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 24, 2023

Shortly after the first transaction, the recipient address offloaded all the 50M tokens it received, as well as some funds from its previous balance. The address transferred 70M XRP ($32M) to another Ripple-affiliated wallet. The 70M XRP tokens were eventually sent to Bitso, Bitstamp and Independent Reserve.

These movements are not uncommon, as Ripple periodically sends millions of XRP to other entities to cater for ODL requirements. Recall that David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO, recently confirmed that the firm sells off its XRP to reduce the amount it holds. Ripple sold $226 million worth of XRP in Q2 2022.

Other Whale Transactions

Besides the recent transactions from Ripple, other whale addresses cumulatively moved over 230M XRP tokens ($105M) in five separate transactions. The earliest and largest transaction involved the transfer of 108.9M XRP ($49.9M) between two unknown addresses on April 23, 21:53 (UTC).

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 108,950,000 #XRP (49,929,796 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallethttps://t.co/TiyeG2UfVx

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 23, 2023

Barely three hours later, an unknown wallet transferred 28M XRP ($12.9M) to a Bitstamp address. Two minutes after the Bitstamp inflow, Bitso carried out an in-house movement worth 42M XRP ($19.3M).

The other two transactions occurred after Ripple’s movements, with the first one involving the transfer of 26M XRP ($11.9M) from an unidentified wallet to Bitstamp on April 24, 23:28 (UTC). Two minutes later, Bitso conducted another in-house movement to the tune of 25.6M XRP ($11.9M).

🚨 25,600,000 #XRP (11,957,104 USD) transferred from #Bitso to unknown wallethttps://t.co/SdciqnQt7p

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 24, 2023

XRP Battles to Hold $0.46

These whale transactions come at a time when XRP is struggling to hold above the $0.46 price territory amid a fierce battle with the bears. The recent market-wide downturn triggered a drop from the high of $0.53 on April 19 to a 4-week low of $0.4448 on April 21.

Despite a modest comeback, XRP has faced massive hurdles on its journey to once again recover the $0.50 zone. The asset is presently struggling to hold above $0.46, currently trading for $0.4585, down 3% in the past 24 hours.