Huge spikes have followed by xrp as the cryptocurrency market shook up recently, with the token surging 380% in 23 days, including a 75% surge in the last four days to a peak of $2.87 on December 2.
According to Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, it looks like the swift rise is on thanks to large investors, or ‘whales,’ who have mostly been buying on Coinbase.
“The reason I’ve been particularly concerned about collection fees is because xrp prices have consistently shown a 3–13% premium on Coinbase compared to other exchanges when prices went up, which is a good indication of something interesting going on,” noted Ju.
XRP Fails To Show Premium On Upbit
However, South Korean exchange Upbit which represents a substantial chunk of XRP trading volume but nonetheless avoided the premium shows no evidence of a similar faddish premium.Ju, on his secondary X account, @kate_young_ju, also teased potential insider trading, writing, “Someone knew something.”
Admittedly, he thought the very recent whale activity could be associated with extremely bullish developments, like the possibility of clearing an XRP spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). Under the current market conditions, Ju also warned traders against shorting XRP, calling it ‘risky.’ “I referenced somehow a $25 billion deposit of XRP before the rally and people take that as manipulation but could possibly be a front running by informed investors,” he said.
In addition, the frequency of retail trading, as analyzed by Ju, was higher, even higher than that of 2021, and approaching the records of January 2018, when Ripple hit its all time high of $3.92. Another one year cumulative volume delta chart also had a sharp rebound, with whales aggressively pushing demand with market orders.
Technical analyst Jacob Canfield points to a critical resistance on XRP’s BTC pair (XRPBTC) with Ripple hitting $2.75 on its USDT pair, a level it hasn’t touched since December 2019. Breaking this resistance, said Canfield, could open the door to 240% gains revisiting key zones from 2017-2019.
Canfield described recent Ripple candles as the strongest in over five years, and if we see true FOMO, Ripple could rally as much as 700% to its all time high against Bitcoin. As for short term traders, Canfield advises using low time frame support and resistance for optimal entry points, with a high probability of re entry spot when a bullish impulse, in the $2.20 support level.
XRP is still very much under the spotlight as the crypto market rises again thanks to increased whale activity, and speculation.
