Ripple and Whales Shift 104M XRP as Price Risks a Drop Below $0.40

XRP tokens recently moved by Ripple were some of the 300 million XRP released from escrow for May.

XRP whale transactions have seen a marked uptick recently, with Ripple in the middle of each batch. The latest cluster of movements involved a cumulative amount of 104 million XRP. These recent transactions have come up when analysts believe XRP might be at risk of dropping below $0.40.

Ripple Moves 50M XRP

Of the 104 million XRP tokens recently moved, Ripple accounted for 50 million. The California-based FinTech company conducted the transaction today at 00:08 (UTC), as highlighted by the whale-tracking resource Whale Alert.

🚨 🚨 50,000,000 #XRP (20,955,402 USD) transferred from Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/X7b9rgjNR0

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 12, 2023

While the tweet from Whale Alert mentions that the recipient address is unknown, on-chain investigation suggests that it actually belongs to Ripple.

Notably, the recently-moved 50 million XRP tokens are some assets Ripple released from escrow this month. As previously reported by The Crypto Basic, the firm unlocked 1 billion XRP from escrow on May 1. Shortly after the execution, 700 million XRP was sent back to escrow, while 300 million remained unlocked.

Ripple then transferred 50 million XRP from the 300 million tokens on May 9, as The Crypto Basic previously disclosed. The latest 50 million XRP transaction is the second one in barely three days. This means the company has moved 100 million XRP out of the 300 million tokens.

Other Whale Transactions

In addition to Ripple’s latest movement, other whales recently shuffled a total of 54 million XRP tokens in two transactions. Both movements involved an inflow to the UK-based crypto exchange Bitstamp.

The first transaction involved the transfer of 26 million XRP ($11.28 million) to Bitstamp on May 10, 20:11 (UTC). Whale Alert says the sending wallet is unknown, but investigations revealed that it actually belongs to Ripple. The second transaction saw the same Ripple-affiliated address send 28 million XRP ($11.599 million) to the same Bitstamp wallet on May 11, 19:48 (UTC).

XRP at Risk of a Drop

These whale transactions have come up when analysts believe XRP might be at risk of a drop below $0.40 for the first time since March 21. Recently, Egrag, a notable market watcher, warned that the asset cloud plummeted to as low as $0.31, calling attention to a descending channel formed on its daily chart.

However, Egrag also noted that the XRP could defy the trend and break out to $0.55. The asset is trading for $0.4303, down 6.56% in the past week. XRP closed yesterday with a 2.23% decline but has so far recouped the losses incurred, having increased by 2.4% since the start of today.