In the last three days, whales have significantly increased their holdings of Ripple (XRP) tokens. Such strong buying pressure is capable of supporting the altcoin's growth in the coming days.
Let’s figure out what’s happening in the Ripple market $XRP and how high the altcoin could soar.
Whales are buying Ripple
In the last few days — from December 15 to today, December 18 — whales have increased their XRP holdings from 4.85 billion tokens to 4.95 billion. This means that in just three days, investors holding between 1 million and 10 million coins bought a total of 100 million XRP.
Meanwhile, large investors holding between 100 million and 1 billion have purchased an additional 870 million Ripple tokens during the same period. Thus, the total number of assets under their management has increased from 8.86 billion on December 15 to 9.63 billion at the time of writing.
At the current price of the altcoin, the total amount of whale purchases is nearly $2.5 billion. Such high buying activity is usually considered a strong bullish signal, indicating a possible breakout soon.
However, not everything is so straightforward: on-chain data from CryptoQuant indicates that the expected breakout may not happen. The Whale to Exchange Flow metric — which helps track how many tokens whales withdraw from centralized exchanges or transfer to them — has risen from 2,243 to 3,585 in the last three days.
Such dynamics mean that large investors are starting to transfer more tokens to exchanges. This may indicate their desire to sell off their assets.
However, the balance of power in the Ripple market is currently on the side of buyers. If they do not give up their positions, we can expect the altcoin to soar in the near future.
XRP Forecast: Rally Prospects
At the time of writing this analysis, XRP is trading at $2.57, having decreased by just over 5% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, a 'bull flag' is observed on the daily chart of the cryptocurrency. This pattern consists of two rally periods separated by a brief consolidation.
The chart below shows that Ripple is ready to break above the upper trend line of the pattern. If it succeeds, the token will have a chance to soar to $3.50 in the near future.
However, increased selling from whales threatens to negate this forecast. In that case, XRP is likely to fall below the lower line of the 'flag' and retreat to $1.98.
