XRP millionaire wallets rise as market cap drops 29%

XRP's market cap fell 29 percent from its January peak as millionaire wallets climbed, with the token trading near $1.00 on Thursday. On-chain data shows large holders quietly accumulating during the downturn.

"Whales bought over 72 million XRP in the last 24 hours," Ali Martinez, on-chain analyst, said in an Aug 13 post on X. "I wonder what they know that we don't."

Santiment data shows wallets holding at least 1 million XRP rose by 32 over three months to about 2,033. Large holders added more than 380 million XRP in the week to Aug 9, lifting combined balances above 8 billion tokens, worth roughly $8.2 billion at current prices. Average daily active addresses climbed to about 35,700 in August from 26,400 in July, with Aug 11 the busiest day since June 5. New addresses, however, stayed almost flat at about 2,260 daily, meaning the rise came from existing users rather than fresh participants.

The accumulation comes as XRP sits roughly 69 percent below its January peak near $3.30, testing the psychologically significant $1.00 level. A sustained break below $1.00 could trigger stop-loss selling from leveraged positions and push the token toward $0.75, the realized price where whale accumulation has concentrated.

Whale buying diverges from collapsing ETF flows

The on-chain accumulation contrasts sharply with institutional flows. Weekly net inflows into the seven US spot XRP ETFs collapsed 93 percent to $1.01 million for the week ending Aug 8, from $14.86 million the prior week, according to crypto.news data. Around 81 percent of Binance XRP withdrawals were routed to private wallets, another sign holders are moving tokens off exchanges for longer-term storage.

The divergence between whale accumulation and retail apathy has historically preceded significant price moves in both directions. Whales buying while retail sells can indicate informed accumulation ahead of the CLARITY Act vote scheduled for Sept 15, which would classify XRP as a digital commodity under CFTC oversight. Polymarket traders assign 16 percent odds of passage. Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD, meanwhile, has grown to a $1.6 billion market cap without generating proportional XRP demand, with most activity settling on Ethereum rather than the XRP Ledger.

Technical levels and what to watch

Crypto investor Diana sees $0.87 as the next major support, with $0.77-$0.80 the larger decision zone where a multi-year rising trendline comes into play. If support holds and XRP reverses, upside targets sit at $1.46, $1.57, $1.97, and $2.37, with a retest of the $3.56-$3.66 all-time high as the bigger test. The biggest hurdle before a larger recovery is around $1.06, where nearly 3 billion XRP sit near break-even.

For now, whale accumulation is the main bullish clue. XRP still needs to prove the bottom is in, but if large holders keep buying around these levels and price holds $0.87-$0.80, the setup could shift from correction to recovery, with $1.46-$2.37 as the first major upside path.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.