Whale Moves $11.6M Worth of XRP to Bitstamp, Traders Prepare for Selloff

An XRP whale has just moved their entire holdings into Bitstamp. The sender’s address now holds only 25 XRP in it after 49,999,995 XRP was transferred out of it and into Bitstamp. The massive $11.6M move happened earlier today and was picked up by Whale Alert (@whale_alert).

🚨 49,999,995 #XRP (11,669,366 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Bitstamp

Tx: https://t.co/IIaFsmiBqB

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 28, 2020

The reactions to the transfer were largely negative with most expecting a sell-off. Some were saying they were ready to “buy the dip” while others took aim at XRP for constantly bleeding out. The overall reaction was not surprising, but rather just dismay at the likelihood of yet another sell-off.

dump it

— Crypto Lover (@Ulfaulfa786) January 28, 2020

Still, it seems like the cryptocurrency is holding onto its minor gains for now. The third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently up +1.85% on the daily but is still down -2.31% relative to BTC. Ripple (XRP) is up significantly since the start of the year, however. On January 3rd, the asset was trading for $0.187; it is currently trading for $0.233. As BeInCrypto has previously reported, Ripple has been notorious for unlocking mass amounts of tokens on a consistent basis. For example, another 1 billion XRP was unlocked from the team’s escrow on January 2nd, 2020. Although the team is expected to unlock 1 billion XRP every month, the sheer amount creates persistent sell-off pressure. Moreover, that’s $233M being unlocked every month which some have criticized—why does the team need such a large amount of funds every month? Although the recently-moved $11.6M worth of XRP is a fraction of Ripple’s total market capitalization, it is still enough to move the market significantly. Therefore, traders should be cautious and, at the very least, anticipate some more sideways price action in the coming days.