Maintaining its position above $2, despite its 8.2% decline against the US dollar this week. Over the weekend, massive on-chain XRP transactions caught the attention, with the network’s stablecoin, RLUSD, reaching $53 million in value.
Whale Alerts
Recent weeks have seen a significant advance for XRP, supported by speculation of a more friendly US regulatory environment and the debut of RLUSD trading on major exchanges. However, the crypto asset has mirrored the overall market decline, settling at $2.18 per unit after falling 8.2% this week.
Even with this pullback, XRP is still up 50.4% compared to 30 days ago. Since December 17, the asset has lost roughly $0.50 per coin. On Saturday, December 21, 30 million XRP, worth $70.89 million, were withdrawn from the South Korea-based exchange Upbit. Notably, South Korea accounts for 22% of XRP trading volume.
The transfer was detected by Whale Alert’s blockchain monitoring system, which also flagged two large transactions initiated by Ripple itself on the same day. The company moved 90 million XRP in two parts: 50 million XRP worth $111.69 million and 40 million XRP worth $89.67 million, with the funds directed to anonymous wallets.
Ripple's RLUSD is ranked 37th
Another focal point for Ripple enthusiasts is the fiat-backed cryptocurrency token RLUSD. Data from coinmarketcap.com and etherscan.io indicate that there are currently 53 million RLUSD tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. The Ripple Deployer wallet holds the lion’s share, with 39,298,912.01 RLUSD, or 73.87%.
The second largest holder is B2C2 Group, an institutional liquidity provider, which holds 3,039,391 RLUSD (5.71%). An unknown wallet comes in third with 2,899,910 RLUSD, followed by Uphold, which holds 2.28 million RLUSD and an additional 305,295 RLUSD in another wallet, making it the fourth largest holder. Mexico-based exchange Bitso rounds out the top five RLUSD holders.
Etherscan.io shows that the top 100 holders collectively own 99.93% (53,163,421.03 tokens) of RLUSD.
RLUSD has seen 1,396 on-chain transactions on the Ethereum blockchain so far. Coinmarketcap data reveals that most of the trading activity comes from Bitso and Mercado Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Brazil. With a market cap of $53 million, RLUSD is ranked 37th among stablecoins, on par with yield-bearing stablecoin astherus (USDF). It still has a long climb to make it into the top 10, with Paypal’s PYUSD occupying the 10th spot.
