A bizarre on-chain event has sparked confusion across the XRP community today.
In a span of just 62 minutes, a massive stash of 73 million XRP was transferred between five different anonymous wallets.
The entire sum was valued at $151.3 million at the time of the transfer.
The on-chain “hot potato”
XRP researcher Leonidas Hadjiloizou has jokingly commented that nobody wants this massive number of tokens.
The fact that the entire lump sum is kept intact indicates that this is a security protocol or liquidity routing by a single large entity. This is likely an exchange or custodian.
XRP is currently changing hands at $2.07, remaining the fifth-largest token by market capitalization.
Other recent XRP transfers
Earlier this year, the XRP Ledger recorded a series of rapid-fire transfers between anonymous entities. On Jan. 8, trackers captured four distinct transactions of roughly 68.1 million XRP each. Roughly $585 million was moved in a single day between unknown wallets.
This pattern continued into the weekend, with another 60 million XRPs (worth roughly $125.6 million) being transferred on Jan. 10.
These "unknown to unknown" transfers typically represent internal housekeeping by large exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) desk settlements, or private whales consolidating holdings.
As reported by U.Today, Ripple kicked off January with a standard monthly unlock that took place on the very day of the month. This provides liquidity to Ripple for operational costs and sales to institutional partners. Typically, a large portion is re-locked into escrow shortly after. However, there were some inconsistencies last year.
Denys Serhiichuk
Tomiwabold Olajide