Crypto traders are trying to determine why Ripple is moving 356,207,423 XRP worth $78.4 million.
The San Francisco startup, which owns more than half of all XRP in existence, sent the XRP to unknown wallets in two separate transactions. The first transfer happened on Wednesday, with the second coming through two days later.
In response to the above tweet from Whale Alert, crypto enthusiasts connected the transfer to the Luxembourg-based crypto exchange Bitstamp.
Traders speculate the movement was an over-the-counter sale to the exchange and question whether the transfer is connected to Bitstamp’s plans to join Ripple’s XRP-based liquidity solution.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin whales are out to play. In the last day, some of the largest Bitcoin holders on the ledger moved 15,992 BTC worth $134.6 million.
Four of the transfers involved BTC moving onto an exchange, where it could be sold on the open market. The remaining three transfers were traders moving their crypto from an exchange to wallets of unknown origin.
A recent report from the crypto exchange Binance found that whales bought Ethereum and XRP at an increasing pace through the month of December, while large holders of Bitcoin appeared to anticipate a rally late in the month that didn’t come to fruition.
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