Долгосрочные держатели XRP активизировались: продажи и новые рыночные действия Translation: Long-term XRP Holders Activate: Sales Surge and New Market Actions

Since the beginning of August, the daily sales volume of XRP held by long-term investors has surged by 580% — from $38 million to $260 million. Analysts from Glassnode have noted this development.

According to experts, seasoned traders who have been accumulating the asset until November 2024 have started to take profits. The activation of this group of market participants coincided with the decline in XRP’s price from $3.3 to $2.4.

A similar trend is observed among short-term holders. The proportion of coins aged between one and three months decreased from 12.9% at the beginning of October to the current 7.8%.

At the same time, large addresses have begun to accumulate the asset. Over the past two weeks, whales holding between 100 million and 1 billion XRP have increased their reserves from 6.9 billion XRP to 8.24 billion XRP.

As of this writing, the cryptocurrency is trading at around $2.5. In the last 24 hours, the price has risen by 0.9%.

On-chain activity for XRP has significantly diminished. Since the beginning of October, payment volumes — a key measure of the utility of the XRP Ledger XRPL — have plummeted nearly 70%, dropping from 1.5 billion to 298 million.

During the same timeframe, the number of active addresses fell from over 25,000 to 12,819.

Historically, periods of price stagnation have been accompanied by prolonged declines in on-chain metrics.

From a technical perspective, bearish sentiments are predominant. According to TradingView, the RSI for XRP stands at 51 — remaining in the neutral zone but trending towards bearish territory. The MACD also indicates the same. The nearest support level is at $2.4.

The downward movement of XRP, combined with the declining on-chain activity, has reignited a long-standing debate regarding the fundamental value of the token. This discussion was triggered by a tweet from Scott Melker, host of the podcast The Wolf Of All Streets.

“What’s the message for XRP these days? I’m not talking about Ripple, but about the token itself. Western Union has chosen Solana for its stablecoin, and Swift has opted for Linea on Ethereum. […] What value does XRP truly provide?” — he tweeted.

The responses were divided. Supporters of the coin, such as co-founder of XAO DAO Santiago Velez, explained that the primary function of the asset is to serve as a neutral bridge currency without an issuer in the XRPL network.

“XRP, as a native asset, only carries the market volatility that is characteristic of other digital assets. However, this risk can be mitigated through efficient AMM and minimal settlement times in rippling operations. To my knowledge, no other major L1 blockchain employs this architecture, except for XLM (which is a fork of XRP),” — he noted.

He also acknowledged that “the adoption of the coin is far from the scales at which it is promoted.” According to Velez, most investors believe in the potential of the cryptocurrency rather than its current level of usage.

“The majority of XRP’s price growth is driven by narrative and social consensus. Not by technologies, not by partnerships, but by promises of a potential future. We are witnessing the birth of the ‘Internet of Value’ in real-time and hope our assets will realize their potential,” — he stated, emphasizing this is the reason he chose to invest in the asset.

A user under the nickname Cripto ISO 22 added that XRP “connects all kinds of money,” referring to Ripple’s recent initiatives: integration with GTreasury, the launch of RLUSD, and a partnership with Evernorth.

Commentator under the pseudonym Krippenreiter pointed out an additional use case — institutional DeFi, where locking XRP in smart contracts could significantly affect market equilibrium of supply and demand.

Critics countered that the coin lacks any utility:

“XRP is needed for nothing — it is merely sold to cover business expenses and software development. This has nothing to do with the token’s real utility. Banks have already stated they are not interested in it.”

For reference, over the past seven years, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen earned $764 million from selling the project’s native coin.