XRP whales are active, but the market is barely moving — Why?
Binance reserves fell, but there seemed to be low network activity as well.
Whale activity may be carrying XRP as tokens move away from exchanges. However, withdrawal activity across major exchanges hasn’t quite translated into market pace. Not yet.
Here’s why.
Big whale orders take the lead
The Spot Average Order Size chart revealed that most recent trades can be classified as “Big Whale Orders.” Hence, the inference seemed simple: bigger hands are still active, despite the evident fall in the altcoin’s price.
XRP was trading near $1.10 at the time of writing. This was well below its early 2026 high of around $2.30, despite the price being stable in recent weeks.
Here’s where it gets interesting though. The price chart does not show whether these investors have been buying or selling. Instead, for now, it merely hinted at participation.
Binance XRP reserves fall to 2.61 billion
What’s peculiar is that the aforementioned whale activity came along with XRP reserves on Binance falling. In fact, the number dropped to around 2.61 billion XRP, from nearly 2.80 billion in March.
Users are possibly moving tokens away from the platform, which may reduce the amount of tokens available to sell.
The drop got harder towards the end of June. Given the rise in whale activity, it’s safe to assume that this movement has been courtesy of large holders.
A greater change?
According to analyst Amr Taha, Coinbase’s seven-day net transaction count dropped to around -13,000. This seemed to be its most withdrawal-heavy level in nearly five months.
Binance fell to roughly -5,600 transactions and Bybit moved from about +27,000 in early June to nearly neutral by mid-July. Simply put, withdrawal transactions are now higher than deposits across all three platforms.
Despite it all, market isn’t heated up
Finally, XRP’s velocity was near 0.0034 at the time of writing, well below the larger spikes seen earlier in the year.
Low velocity means XRP is not moving frequently across the network. The whale-sized orders and the fall in exchange balances have not spread enough to cause a change in pace.
A hike in token movement from exchanges may mean holding or lower sell pressure. However, there seemed to be no indication of new demand just yet. In fact, the token’s price was also too steady. This meant that the market response may still be due.
For now, large holders may be active. However, nothing seems to have come out of it so far.
Final Summary
- XRP whale activity has been strong on the back of Binance reserves falling and withdrawals rising.
- However, low XRP velocity hasn’t led to stronger pace just yet.
