Today, Ripple shuffled 100 million XRP tokens valued at over $54 million, raising eyebrows among market watchers.
Blockchain tracker Whale Alert noted this transaction, which occurred as early as 04:47 UTC. While the whale tracker marked the recipient of the 100 million XRP as anonymous, XRP blockchain explorers show that the wallet belongs to Ripple.
🚨 🚨 🚨 100,000,000 #XRP (54,594,473 USD) transferred from #Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/5UoknxkDkv
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 6, 2024
Ripple’s Latest Internal XRP Transfer
This internal transfer comes less than a week after 1 billion XRP tokens were unlocked from Ripple’s wallet in accordance with the monthly escrow execution. Of this massive release, the company reserved 200 million and sent back 800 million to escrow as customary.
Shortly before re-locking the escrow, Ripple moved the 1 billion XRP to spendable wallets, with its primary address, “Ripple 1,” receiving 350 million XRP. At press time, this 350 million XRP remains untouched in the wallet.
Interestingly, one of the wallets that funded the “Ripple 1” wallet on September 1, identified as “Ripple 29,” is also the entity that transferred 100 million XRP today to the “Ripple 52” wallet. The recipient wallet had a balance of 95 million XRP from transactions last recorded in July.
100M XRP Moved Amid XRP Price Drop
As usual, speculation has emerged following this latest movement of 100 million XRP, with some suggesting that Ripple is “dumping XRP on retail.” These rumors gain traction as XRP’s price has fallen by 3.86% today, now trading at $0.5271.
It is worth noting that XRP’s price drop today is not isolated to the token. The broader market is also bearish, and Bitcoin is championing the bleeding trend, having collapsed to $53,800 at the time of reporting.
Moreover, at the time of reporting, the “Ripple 52” wallet, which received the 100 million XRP inflow, continues to maintain a balance of 195 million XRP, worth approximately $102 million, with no outbound transactions yet. Likewise, no outflow is observable yet from the Ripple 1 wallet.