- XRP slipped under $2 after the December 1 crash, yet whales aggressively accumulated for 30 days straight as buyer-dominance held firm.
- Whale wallets holding 100M+ XRP dropped, but total whale balances hit 48B XRP—its highest level in seven years, hinting at deep accumulation.
- Technical signals remain bearish, and XRP could retest $1.90 unless whale demand strengthens enough to reclaim $2.20 and push toward $2.50.
XRP slipped under the $2 mark right after the December 1st market crash, dropping to a local low around $1.90 before catching a small, almost hesitant rebound. At the moment of writing, Ripple’s XRP sits near $2.02—down about 1.28% on the daily chart and more than 8% over the week. Not ideal, but the broader weakness oddly opened a window that whales didn’t hesitate to squeeze themselves into.
Whales Stayed Active Even as Price Slumped
Despite XRP wobbling all over its chart lately, whales haven’t exactly stepped back. If anything, they’ve gotten louder. CryptoQuant data showed unusually large values on the Spot Average Order Size metric for thirty straight days. That’s a full month of heavy-hitting trades rolling through the spot market.
Whenever this metric shows big orders, it usually signals either aggressive buying or selling. But in this case, it wasn’t dumping. The Spot Taker CVD has stayed green for three weeks in a row, which is basically the market’s way of saying buyers are dominating. Most executed orders are buys—not sells—which fits the picture of accumulation rather than panic.
XRP Whale Holdings Hit Highest Level in Seven Years
While whale activity has been heating up, something even stranger happened in XRP’s supply dynamics. Santiment data revealed that the total number of wallets holding 100M+ XRP actually dropped by more than 20% in just eight weeks. Sounds bearish at first glance, right?
But here’s the twist: despite there being fewer whale wallets, the total balance held by whales surged to 48 billion XRP. That’s a seven-year high. So fewer whales… holding way more XRP. Pretty clear what that means.
At the same time, Whale-to-Exchange Flow on Binance barely moved—hovering around 1k transfers per day for a month. That’s tiny for whales. It shows they’re not sending XRP to exchanges (which is what you do when you want to sell). Instead, they’re keeping coins off exchanges or withdrawing them. Another pretty loud accumulation signal.
Technical Signals Still Keep Things Bearish
All that said, the charts aren’t exactly smiling yet. The extended weakness on XRP’s price structure has definitely created a tempting buying zone, especially for whales who thrive on blood-in-the-streets energy. But technically, the asset still leans bearish.
The Relative Vigor Index Zero Cross just flipped into a bearish crossover, dropping to -0.02. That’s a sign of strong downward momentum—basically bears still pushing, bulls kinda watching from the sidelines. With the RVGI pointing south, buyers don’t have enough strength to wrestle control back—at least not right now.
That puts traders in a tricky spot, where jumping in too early could mean deeper losses ahead. If bearish pressure keeps building, XRP could crack below $2 again, where the Parabolic SAR has its next support level around $1.90.
But if whales finally turn all that accumulation into real-demand pressure, XRP could shake off some weakness and try reclaiming $2.20. And if momentum actually sticks, maybe even stretch toward $2.50 afterward.
