Sentiments have begun to turn extremely bearish across the broad crypto market, putting XRP on the downside all week with its price steadily trading in the red territory.
Amid the broad market weakness, XRP is increasingly lagging in its network activity. Popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez has spotted a significant drop in its large transaction volume as whales appear to be stepping back.
XRP whale transactions drop 57%
According to on-chain data showcased by the analyst, the number of XRP transactions carrying tokens worth at least $1 million dropped from 157 to just 67 over the last 9 days.
Notably, this marks a substantial decrease of 57.3% in the XRP whale activity within the period, suggesting that XRP network activity is increasingly becoming weak.
With such a rapid slowdown in XRP's large transaction volume, it appears that large holders are temporarily stepping back amid growing uncertainties.
What to expect from XRP?
The metric has sparked speculations for a prolonged price correction for XRP as massive decreases in whale transactions indicate fewer massive buy or sell orders hitting the market.
Moreover, this could lead to lower short-term volatility as the analyst noted that periods like this can indicate consolidation, where price action tightens before a larger breakout move eventually occurs.
Although XRP has just retested $1.31, analysts have revealed that there may be no need to panic as lower transaction volume from large holders could be a way to allow order books to strengthen organically as retail traders dominate short-term activity.
Hence, the current market weakness fueled by the declining on-chain activity may be followed by a price breakout in the near future.
Dan Burgin
