XRP active addresses jump 84% as whales accumulate, ETF inflows stall

XRP's on-chain activity is diverging sharply from its price and institutional flows, with whale wallets accumulating while spot ETF demand dries up.

XRP active addresses rose 84% to 43,543 since Aug. 1 as wallets holding more than one million tokens added 32 members over three months, even as spot ETF inflows stalled.

"Stronger hands are absorbing panic, patience is replacing simple price-related hype, and future volatility becomes more interesting for bulls," Santiment said in a post on X, pointing to the million-coin cohort's growth despite a 29 percent drop in XRP's market cap over the same stretch.

The divergence extends to institutional flows. XRP spot ETFs recorded zero net inflows across the first two sessions of this week, according to SoSoValue data, after weekly inflows compressed from a $60.50 million peak in mid-May to $1.01 million last week. Net assets slipped to $964.21 million from $988.78 million.

XRP traded at $1.01 as of 09:46 UTC on Aug. 12, up 1.36 percent in 24 hours, after briefly breaking below the $1 psychological level for the first time since November 2024. The RSI reading of 37 keeps momentum tilted toward sellers, with the 123.6 percent Fibonacci retracement at $0.85 the next support if selling resumes.

Whale accumulation vs. retail selling

Santiment attributed the accumulation to RLUSD's growth into an institutional stablecoin and Ripple's expansion of the XRP Ledger into tokenization, payments, and settlement. The XRPL 3.3.0 upgrade, released to boost decentralized finance usage, has also lifted network activity even as prediction markets price only a 22 percent chance the CLARITY Act becomes law this year.

The on-chain strength runs against a backdrop of retail selling that has cut XRP's market cap by 29 percent in the three months whales have been buying. XRP is down roughly 43 percent since the start of the year and about 70 percent from its $3.65 peak last year.

Bridge hack adds to headwinds

The Coreum bridge linking the XRP Ledger with TX Chain was drained of about 200,000 XRP, worth roughly $200,000, after an attacker exploited a flaw in deposit verification to create fake balances and withdraw real tokens. The Ripple community confirmed the exploit did not occur on the XRP Ledger itself.

If sellers reach exhaustion, XRP must reclaim the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement at $1.20 to confirm a stronger uptrend, analysts said. The swift reclaim of $1 on Aug. 12 is constructive short-term, but all four exponential moving averages and the Supertrend remain stacked overhead as resistance.

The split between rising on-chain activity and flat ETF demand points to two different participant groups reading the same asset in opposite ways. Sustained whale accumulation could set up a breakout if price stabilizes, while continued institutional outflows would keep pressure on the token.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.