Who Is Behind This Rally?

TL:DR;

• XRP continues to make the headlines, with another notable surge that pushed its price beyond $2.7 for the first time in almost seven years.
• On-chain data has attributed this mindblowing monthly rally to whales accumulating the asset, mostly on Coinbase.

It almost seems like a repeat now when it comes down to XRP’s price performances in the past month and since Sunday, in particular, but there’s a lot going on around the asset.

Recall that just yesterday, Ripple’s native token traded at around $1.9. However, it exploded first to over $2.2, as reported, before it shot up to $2.5 for the first time since January 2018.

During the market-wide retracement from earlier on Monday, it slipped back down to $2.2, but the bulls stepped up on the gas pedal once again and initiated another massive rally.

This time, XRP’s price skyrocketed to $2.75, which became a new local peak. Moreover, the cryptocurrency came just 23% away from its all-time high of $3.4 (CoinGecko data).

Despite retracing slightly to under $2.7 now, XRP is still up by over 420% in the past month. This surge has pushed its market cap to well beyond $150 billion, solidifying its place as the third-largest cryptocurrency by this metric.

Many reports claimed that this rally was driven primarily by whales accumulating substantial portions of the asset. CryptoQuant’s CEO, Ki Young Ju, confirmed this narrative but also shed some more light, noting that most of the buying took place on Coinbase.

This makes sense due to the expected political change in the United States following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections and Gary Gensler’s announcement that he will step down as SEC Chair in January.

Coinbase whales are driving this $XRP rally.

Over the past 30 days, Coinbase’s minute-level price premium has ranged from 3% to 13% during the surge.

Meanwhile, Upbit—a Korean exchange with more XRP investors than Binance—has shown no significant premium so far. pic.twitter.com/ENESB2Zrkv

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) December 2, 2024