XRP has experienced an extraordinary surge in recent weeks, with its price surging 380% in the past 23 days. In the past four days alone, the price has risen 75%, reaching a peak of $2.87 on December 2. This rapid rise appears to have been driven by heavy buying activity from large investors, often referred to as “whales.”
Ki Young Ju, CEO of on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, highlighted that these whales primarily operate through the U.S. exchange Coinbase. On Dec. 2, he noted that “Coinbase whales are driving XRP’s rally,” noting that Coinbase’s minute-by-minute price premiums during the rally ranged from 3% to 13%.
In contrast, Upbit, a South Korean exchange with more XRP investors than Binance, did not show a significant premium, suggesting that buying pressure is mainly coming from the United States.
On his Alternative X account (@kate_young_ju), Ki Young Ju hinted at possible insider activity affecting market dynamics, saying “someone knows something.”
Today, he cautioned traders against shorting XRP. "Shorting XRP right now seems very risky to me. Depositing $25 billion of XRP before the pump might look like market manipulation, but it might actually just be front-running. This inside whale might know some extremely favorable news about XRP, such as a spot ETF approval," he speculated.
He further shared a chart “ XRP: Surging Retail Activity (Spot & Futures) by Transaction Frequency, which shows that XRP’s retail trading activity has surpassed its 2021 highs and is approaching levels seen in January 2018, when XRP reached its all-time high of $3.92.
Looking at the 1-year cumulative increase in taker buy/sell volume (CVD), he commented: “XRP taker buy/sell volume 1-year cumulative increase is showing a historic rebound. Whales are actively using market orders, driving overwhelming demand.”
Will XRP rise 700% against BTC?
From a technical analysis perspective, cryptocurrency analyst Jacob Canfield stressed the importance of studying the XRP/BTC pairing. He noted that XRP is currently in a critical resistance zone on the BTC pair chart (XRPBTC) and has just reached the $2.75 level on the USDT pair — a resistance point since December 2019.
Canfield believes that a breakout here could signal that XRP could fall back to key resistance areas seen in 2017, 2018, and 2019, with gains of 240%. “If we really get FOMO, then we could be looking at another all-time high for XRP against Bitcoin of 700%,” he commented, acknowledging that “this is the strongest two monthly candles for XRP we have seen in 5 years.”
Looking at the lower timeframes for the XRP/USD pair, Canfield highlights the usefulness of support and resistance levels in identifying new entry points on these timeframes. “In a bull market, you need to use the lower timeframe support/resistance levels to find new entries. 5m/15m are the best timeframes. Using XRP as an example - $2.20 is a clear S/R invalidation. Bottom of the largest green candle = bottom of the impulse. Usually the best place to re-enter the trade.”
At press time, XRP is trading at $2.63.
