Large XRP holders have been quietly stacking while smaller wallets cut their positions, and the price has followed the money up. Over the past five weeks, XRP climbed more than 8%, recovering from around $1 at the end of June to trade back above $1.16, and on-chain data from Santiment shows exactly who drove that move.
Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million XRP grew their balances by 2.8% during that stretch. These so-called whales and sharks were buying into the rebound, not waiting for confirmation. Meanwhile, the smallest retail wallets shed 5.2% of their holdings over the same period, a textbook capitulation pattern where casual investors give up positions just as larger players absorb them.
What history says about this split
Santiment flagged the divergence as a bullish signal, pointing out that XRP's price has historically tracked the behavior of key stakeholders rather than the smallest retail wallets. When those two groups move in opposite directions, the asset has tended to follow the bigger money. The firm posted the observation on X, noting that the current split "supports the bullish case behind the bounce."
The accumulation comes alongside a few developments that have kept institutional attention on XRP: growing discussion around potential ETF products that would broaden access for larger investors, and continued real-world use of the XRP Ledger for payments, asset tokenization, and the RLUSD stablecoin. That backdrop likely gave sophisticated buyers more reason to add rather than step back when prices dipped toward $1.
Retail holders stepping away while institutions and large wallets lean in is a pattern crypto markets have seen before. Whether this one holds depends on whether the fundamental tailwinds stay in place.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset.
