Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
According to a popular cryptocurrency tracking platform Whale Alert, over the last 24 hours, close to 50 million XRP have been transacted and deposited to two major exchanges. One of them is crypto unicorn Bitso, Mexico-based.
The transactions likely took place when Ripple-affiliated XRP took a 15% nosedive, following the massive Bitcoin crash on Wednesday.
Millions of XRP shoveled to exchanges
The above-mentioned data source spotted two transactions, which carried 26,200,000 XRP and 21,300,000 XRP to Bitstamp and Bitso cryptocurrency trading platforms. These crypto chunks were evaluated at $15,212,362 and $21,300,000 at the time when the transactions were performed. Both transfers were initiated by anonymous blockchain wallets, and it looks like the whales planned to sell all those millions of XRP.
Still, data released by the XRP explorer Bithomp shows that they were made by wallets associated with Ripple Labs fintech behemoth.
Both Bitstamp and Bitso are exchanges that collaborate with Ripple on its payments service powered by RippleNet and utilizing XRP for performing high-speed and low-cost transnational payments. Therefore, these two exchanges and many others that support “Ripple Payment” need to have large amounts of XRP at hand on a regular basis.
XRP plunges 15% following Bitcoin’s crash
On Dec. 3, cryptocurrency markets faced a wave of liquidations, first amounting to $150 million and later surpassing $170 million worth of closed positions. It happened after crypto analytics company Matrixport issued a report that suggested that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to temporarily reject the approval of spot Bitcoin ETF filings submitted by approximately a dozen Wall Street funds.
Among those big-names are BlackRock, Fidelity and Ark Invest. They have been awaiting the decision since the second quarter of last year. Grayscale is also on that list, it has won a case against the SEC, which forced the regulator to review their filing about converting GBTC into a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Once the report was issued, the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin plummeted by approximately 7%, shedding $3,000 and hitting the bottom of the $42,000 zone. Many altcoins followed suit, but the fall of XRP was the biggest of all as it plunged by 15%.
Solana plunged by 10%. Ethereum crashed by almost 8%. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have shown a slight recovery by now.
Denys Serhiichuk
Godfrey Benjamin
Tomiwabold Olajide
