XRP Whale Wallets Decline by 20%, Yet Major Holders Accumulate More

XRP's leading investors are experiencing notable changes on the XRP Ledger: while there are substantially fewer "whale and shark" wallets compared to two months ago, those remaining now hold more XRP than ever before in the past seven years, according to the latest data from the on-chain analytics company Santiment.

Key Takeaways

The number of XRP wallets holding over 100 million XRP has decreased by 20.6% in the past two months.
Remaining whale wallets now collectively possess a historic 48 billion XRP, the highest amount in seven years.
A trend is observed of consolidating wealth into fewer wallets amid declining overall wallet counts.
XRP’s price as of now is $2.01, showing fluctuations alongside changes in wallet distribution.

XRP price news

Shrinking Whale Accounts but Rising Holdings

In a recent update on X, Santiment highlighted what it termed “an intriguing trend” concerning the behavior of the network's most significant holders. The firm stated: "The XRP Ledger is witnessing a remarkable trend of a diminishing number of whale and shark wallets, yet those that remain are accruing more coins. There are now 20.6% fewer wallets containing over 100 million XRP compared to eight weeks ago; however, these wallets collectively hold a record 48 billion XRP."

The data, illustrated in Santiment's Sanbase analytics chart, monitors wallets with a minimum of 100 million XRP—identified as “whales and sharks.” The chart is divided into two segments, both featuring XRP’s price in weekly candlestick format.

XRP whale activity

The upper section shows a yellow line depicting the total number of wallets containing over 100 million XRP over the last year. A notable annotation highlights that there are “569 fewer wallets with over 100 million XRP in the past eight weeks, a 20.6% decline.” This represents a significant reduction in a short span for such a concentrated wealth segment on a major blockchain. The metric exhibits a sharp decrease, coinciding with a decline in XRP’s price.

The lower panel focuses on the total balance of the same group of wallets. Here, a blue line tracks the cumulative holdings of all wallets with over 100 million XRP, which have reached a peak not seen in several years. The chart reflects that these wallets now collectively hold over 48 billion XRP, marking a new seven-year high. This means that despite the drop in the number of large wallets, the total XRP they control continues to rise, reaching levels not seen since 2018, based on data from Santiment.

Together, both visuals reveal a significant concentration trend on the XRP Ledger: there are fewer large wallets, but the amount of XRP they hold has increased among the remaining ones in the 100M+ category. Statistically, for the number of wallets to drop by over 20% while the collective balance rises to a seven-year best of 48 billion XRP, the average balance per wallet in this group must have substantially increased during the highlighted eight-week window.

Santiment restricts its commentary to a descriptive account of the situation, describing it as a “fascinating trend” of wallet reductions alongside increasing balances without offering any price predictions. Simultaneously, the FOMOmeter (@FOMOmeterCrypto) account on X noted, “Whales are consolidating XRP into fewer hands while the general crowd perceives it as background noise, entering a clear low conviction phase that FOMOmeter is designed to measure.”

As of the latest update, XRP is trading at $2.01.

XRP price