Over the last few days, investors with huge amounts of digital assets — also known as ‘crypto whales’ — have been moving substantial volumes of Ripple (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE) between their wallets and major crypto exchanges.
The biggest movements on the blockchain in recent days have come from a number of different XRP wallets shifting enormous amounts of the token between their own personal wallets and onto different crypto exchanges.
How do crypto whale transfers work?
Now, while crypto whale transfers don’t necessarily guarantee anything in the way of immediate price action for that token, they can be very good signals for seeing what might happen to the price of certain tokens in the future.
Let’s say that an XRP whale moves their holdings from a personal wallet into another wallet at a crypto exchange like Coinbase or Binance. This typically means that they’re preparing to sell some or all of their XRP. This is usually a bad sign for the price of that token.
On the other hand, when a Dogecoin whale moves their DOGE from crypto exchanges into their own personal wallet, it means that they’re looking to hold on to that cryptocurrency for a while. This is generally a good sign for the price of that token.
XRP whales have been busy
According to data from the popular blockchain monitoring app Whale Alert, XRP whales have been moving the token around at scale over the last few days. The largest transfers of XRP were from personal wallets onto a Mexican-founded crypto exchange called Bitso.
- 254 million XRP worth US$103.6 million transferred from an unknown wallet to another unknown wallet.
- 39.5 million XRP worth US$16.2 million transferred from crypto exchange Bitso to an unknown wallet.
- 33 million XRP worth US$13.7 million transferred from an unknown wallet to crypto exchange Bitstamp.
- 30 million XRP worth US$12.4 million transferred from wallet of unknown origin to crypto exchange Bitso.
XRP, the native token of the Ripple blockchain network, is currently changing hands for US$0.41 according to data from TradingView. The token of the international payments network has gained nearly 24% since the beginning of this year. Even though XRP — currently the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation — has been enjoying a fairly substantial rally, the token remains down almost 88% from its all-time-high on January 7, 2018.
A number of prominent traders remain bullish on the price of XRP, with famed crypto investors Gareth Soloway saying that if the Ripple can win its outstanding lawsuit with the SEC, then he expects to token to “rip” upwards.
“There’s no doubt about that. Right? XRP probably has $1 written all over it, but that’s a big if right? And so, we have to be aware that it is a question mark. We can only guess what the judge is going to do.”
Gareth Soloway, Professional Trader
Dogecoin whales are also on the move
A Dogecoin whale has also made a big transfer, moving a little more 60 million DOGE worth US$5.2 million from a personal wallet to the popular US-based crypto exchange Coinbase.
Essentially, when massive wallets like this transfer funds onto an exchange its usually a sign that they’re preparing to sell some of this amount over the coming days and weeks, which is bad news for the price of DOGE in the short term.
At the time of writing, DOGE is trading at a smidge below US$0.09 according to data from TradingView. The wildly popular dog-themed meme coin has gained roughly 28% since the beginning of this year, but has traded flat for the last week. DOGE currently stands as the 9th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Despite the recent bullish impulse, the token is still down nearly 88% from its all-time-high which it reached in the early days of May, 2021.
Other big moves
It wasn’t just XRP and DOGE seeing some big moves. On Friday evening, roughly US$165 million worth of Bitcoin was transferred as a lone investor shuffled 7,200 BTC between their personal wallets.
Another unknown crypto investor transferred a staggering 24,768 ETH worth US$39 million at time of the trade, from their personal wallet to Coinbase, suggesting a brief bearish impulse for Ether in the near future.
The popular Ethereum scaling solution, Polygon (MATIC) also witnessed some action, with one investor deciding to shift 5.2 million MATIC, worth US$5.7 million at time of the trade, from the Polygon network to an unknown crypto wallet.
