Ripple Stands Tall Amidst the Bear Trends, Thanks to Massive Whale Moment

What contributed to the recent rise of Ripple? Let's find out here

In the past month, the price of Ripple rallied several times as the digital asset at last found some spark and is now playing catch up with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The likely catalysts for the XRP rally are the rise in unique addresses, buybacks from Ripple, and the possibility of a new product release.

XRP has gained 26.22% over the past week, outperforming top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are currently down 5% and 20% respectively. At the time of publication, XRP was changing hands at US$0.427, up 6.71% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap Information.

According to on-chain analytics firm Santiment, two factors have contributed to XRP's recent rise: increased trader optimism and higher whale movement. On-chain data can be useful for depicting the overall sentiment around a cryptocurrency, as it accurately reflects the activity taking place on the blockchain.

Trader optimism rises amid positive developments in the ongoing Ripple lawsuit. A well-known trader indicated that XRP had the fastest set-up in the crypto market at the moment, with the potential for further breakouts. Adding to the traders' optimism was an American lawyer, Carolyn D. The recent visit is from Pham, who serves as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) commissioner for Ripple Labs, which he said was part of his "learning tour".

Many believe that the travel time may not have been a coincidence. Some XRP proponents also speculated that the CFTC may take over as the currency's regulator, which could mean that XRP would be classified as a commodity. Also, the significant activity of whales was observed in the last few days. As reported by U.Today, 30 million XRP was reported to have been transferred by WhaleAlert, while another 261 million XRP coins were transferred by whales between wallets on various top exchanges in the past day.

Generally, bitcoin's price moves serve as the benchmark to gauge the market sentiment for cryptocurrency traders and investors. When BTC goes up, prices of other crypto assets also appreciate, and vice versa. When the price of bitcoin goes up, people who think BTC is less affordable turn to XRP for exposing themselves to the cryptocurrency market action. This affects the token's price.

Adoption: OTC XRP Sales

XRP is meant to function as an auxiliary asset for Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service. ODL helps financial institutions and payment companies process cross-border transfers much faster than the usual conventional approach. Ripple's quarterly reports (especially this year) point to a rising trend in ODL adoption. For instance, in Q2 2022, over-the-counter (OTC) institutional sales of XRP jumped 1700% as compared to Q1 2022.

What this means is that commercial firms bought more XRP to process their global monetary transactions. This is one of the primary objectives of Ripple as a company. Even if this didn't contribute to significant price movements for Ripple's token, it did instill the market's confidence in XRP.