A $165.9 million XRP transaction has set off alerts among on-chain trackers, but it is not what it seems at first glance. Whale Alert flagged the transfer of 116,661,476 XRP between unidentified wallets, raising suspicions of a large-scale private transaction.
However, on-chain analysts quickly determined that the sender and receiver were actually subwallets of two major crypto exchanges — specifically, Kraken and Binance.
With XRP close to $1.41 and testing post-distribution support zones, the choice of timing raises questions. In this fragile price environment, any large wallet move can spook the market, but the context here points to organized venue activity.
What's going on with XRP, Binance and Kraken?
Whale Alert recently logged a $165,955,281 XRP transfer, with 116,661,476 XRP moving from one "unknown wallet" to another. While this wording sounds mysterious, it often just means that the addresses are not publicly labeled in Whale Alert’s default view; it does not mean that the coins came from nowhere.
The part that made people look twice was that a separate wallet-watching account linked the flow to a Kraken subwallet heading to a Binance subwallet. If that mapping is correct, it is less of a "whale vanishing into the fog" situation and more of an "exchange plumbing happening in public" situation.
If this is accurate, it suggests:
- Liquidity rebalancing.
- Operational batching.
- Market maker logistics.
- OTC or settlement flow.
On the daily XRP/USD chart, the price is near $1.41, with the session marked down about 1.47%. The chart's broader structure shows a long fade from the summer highs into the February lows.
The only reasonable conclusion at this point is that the market context is fragile. Everything else depends on follow-through: subsequent deposit clustering, wallet labeling confirmation and whether the XRP supply actually appears on the spot market after the transfer.
Tomiwabold Olajide
Godfrey Benjamin
Yuri Molchan
Arman Shirinyan
Gamza Khanzadaev