XRP Whale Movement: USD 2.3 mn Worth of XRP Change Wallets

Whale movement is seen in XRP making many believe that the founders of the cryptocurrency are preparing for something big. Over past few days, there has been a lot of large movement of cryptocurrencies from one wallet to another signifying movement around founders and whale pools. Usually, such moves are in and around Ethereum and other ERC tokens, but in one of the rare event large movement was seen in XRP.

13% of the total amount of Ripple in circulation moved in a few transactions

Last evening was one seminal event in the history of XRP. 2 transactions under 10 minutes moved 6.7 billion XRP tokens amounting close to USD 2.1 billion as reported by Twitter Bot @XRPLMonitor. First, it was 2.1 bn XRP and the second was even bigger the move was around 4.6 billion XRP.

Within minutes of the bot posting, XRP supporters started to take notice, especially of the unusually large second transaction. Also taking time to note that the whole transfer of an eye-watering amount of cash was peer-to-peer and cost less than a cent. A big point was made by Ripple with these transactions, about how cheaply money can be transferred using Ripple’s blockchain technology.

While the speed was appreciated, a lot of eyebrows were also raised as to why such a large amount of coins were moved and who were the people behind it. Some believed it could be a large exchange transferring the XRP – perhaps in support of the newly instituted xRapid system, which is being supported by Bittrex, Bitso and Coins.ph – others pointed to the idea that this was Ripple showing off the capabilities and cost savings of the system.

However, according to Twitter user Erik van Dijk, the sending account of the biggest transaction points towards Jed McCaleb, the former CTO of Ripple, creator of Stellar (XLM) and the original creator of the Mt.Gox exchange (and who sold it to the now-infamous Mark Karpeles way back in 2011). In January, he was believed to be holding XRP worth something like $20bn, according to the New York Times. However, at the time that estimate was given XRP was worth $2.73, compared to yesterday’s $0.32 (which would make his haul worth, very roughly, about $2.3bn now).

Another Theory that appeared on Ripple chat forum suggested that the move was to ensure potential institutional investors, or other interested parties, that the market for Ripple could not be adversely affected by one large player holding such a massive cache of the cryptocurrency.

Also, read: XRP Bulls Breakout While Adoption Gets a Boost with XRP/JPY, XRP/GBP & More

Ethereum ICO investor also moves ETH to Bitfinex exchange

A few days back, An ICO investor who originally received 314,000 ETH from the Ethereum network’s Genesis block, as part of the initial coin offering (ICO), has transferred approximately 20,000 ETH (~$5.5 million) to Bitfinex, one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. This transfer is a part of a larger 93,750 ETH transaction, was first discovered by Los Angeles-based lawyer Zoe Dolan who states that she is watching the Ethereum block explorer, Etherscan, for signs of capitulation.

With so much Whale like movement happening across prominent coins, it seems there is definitely something cooking up. Whether this would take the price up or down is something yet to be seen.

Will these movements initiate a bull run or is this sign of bears coming to play? Do let us know your views on the same.