The cryptocurrency market has been somewhat quiet over the past few days, but the XRP price seems to have gained momentum of its own in that period. The usually tame cryptocurrency appears to be breaking out of the market, outperforming other large-cap assets in the top ten.
According to blockchain analytics firm Santiment, the price of XRP broke a three-year high on Binance, the world’s largest exchange, on Saturday, November 16. This is the first time the altcoin has reached this price level since November 11, 2021.
Santiment identifies the motivating factors behind the rise in XRP prices
In her latest post on X platform, Santiment open That key token holders in whale and shark pools were responsible for the recent XRP price spike. Specifically, whale and shark addresses containing between 1 million and 100 million tokens were identified by the on-chain analytics company.
For context, a cryptocurrency whale (and often a shark) refers to an entity that has significant influence over market dynamics due to its large holdings. Aside from their direct impact on price dynamics, whales indirectly influence the market as other investors tend to move in the same direction in anticipation of potential shifts.
Source: Santiment/X
The latest on-chain data from Santiment shows that the aforementioned group of major investors collectively purchased 453.3 million XRP tokens (worth over $526 million) in the past week. Consequently, heavy buying activity has supported the XRP price over the past few days.
The on-chain analytics firm noted that the tokens accumulated by whales and sharks are primarily coming from retail traders selling their purses for small profits in the recent rally. Sentiment data shows that wallets holding less than 1 million XRP have collectively emptied 75.7 million tokens (equivalent to $87.9 million) in the past week.
From a historical perspective, retail investors unloading their tokens could be good for the price of XRP in the long term.
In this regard, Santiment noted:
Historically, any cryptocurrency tends to see positive market capitalization growth when key stakeholders increase their holdings and trust, while concurrent retail FUD boosts this growth further.
XRP price at a glance
As of this writing, the price of XRP is approaching $1.1, shining over the past 24 hours with a rise of over 23%. The altcoin is one of the best-performing assets on the weekly time frame, rising more than 116% in the past seven days.
The price of XRP breaks 3-month high on the daily timeframe | Source: XRPUSDT chart on TradingView
Featured image created by Dall-E, chart from TradingView