XRP Price Decline: Is Ripple Selling Off Tokens?

After surging above the $0.51 mark on Monday, the XRP price has been on a decline once more. This has seen the asset drop back below $0.49 as obvious selling pressure continues to mount on the altcoin. The major focus of holders has been on where this sell pressure is coming from and a number of large transfers from Ripple have raised eyebrows.

Ripple Transfers Over $50 Million XRP

On Monday, two transactions from Ripple caught the attention of the XRP community. The transactions which were detected by whale tracking platform Whale Alert were carrying a significant amount of XRP tokens, leading to speculations that the crypto firm is selling part of its holdings.

The first transaction which was carrying 75 million tokens worth $36.92 million was being sent to an unknown wallet. In this case, it is likely that this tranche of tokens was being sent to a private owner, probably in an over-the-counter (OTC) deal.

The next transaction raised further concerns in the community due to its destination. This time around, Ripple had sent 30 million tokens worth approximately $14.95 million at the time to the Bistamp crypto exchange.  Since the main reason crypto users tend to send tokens to exchanges is so they can sell, this raised more eyebrows, causing speculations that Ripple is selling.

Will These Transfers Affect XRP Price?

One thing to note is that large transfers often take place between Ripple and the Bitstamp exchange. This is because Bitstamp is one of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) services, which explains a lot of the large transactions happening between the two.

However, there is a lot of sell pressure on the XRP price causing it to fall and struggle in the market. Amid this, there has also been a decline in trading interest as evidenced by the almost 26% drop in its daily trading volume between Tuesday and Wednesday, and a 0.33% drop in its market cap in the same time period.

The XRP price remains highly correlated with the general crypto market which explains its drop over the last day as the bulls have slowed down considerably. If the Bitcoin price starts to rally again, then it is likely XRP will follow, leading to a possible break of $0.5 once more.

Presently, the XRP price is sitting at $0.4881 after dropping 0.91% in the last day, but up 0.89% on the 7-day chart, according to data from Coinmarketcap. Nevertheless, the altcoin’s $26 billion market cap makes it the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the market.

Token price struggles at $0.48 | Source: XRPUSD on Tradingview.com