XRP whales accumulate as small holders capitulate

Payments-focused cryptocurrency XRP’s price has risen over 8% in five weeks and during this time, there has been a notable divergence in accumulation trends of large holders or whales and small holders.

According to on-chain data from Santiment, wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million XRP added 2.8% more coins to their balances over the past five weeks. This accumulation by whales and sharks coincided with the token rebounding to $1.16 from $1 at the end of June, suggesting stronger hands are leaning into the current price action.

At the same time, the smallest wallets have shed 5.2% of their holdings during the same period. This capitulation by small holders stands in sharp contrast to the buying pressure from key stakeholders.

These diverging trends are bullish for XRP, according to Santiment.

“Historically, XRP price has tended to move more with key stakeholders and against the smallest retail wallets, so this split supports the bullish case behind the bounce,” the firm noted on X.

The timing aligns with several positive fundamental developments for XRP such as Improved institutional access through potential ETF products and continued utility on the XRP Ledger for payments, tokenization, and the RLUSD stablecoin, the firm explained,

These developments have kept the asset in focus, likely reinforcing confidence among sophisticated investors even as casual holders step back.