Whale Addresses Add 300M XRP in 96 Hours

Whale-linked wallets accumulated more than 300 million XRP in 96 hours, on-chain data shows, lifting their combined holdings to nearly 16.3 billion tokens and helping XRP (XRP), one of the largest altcoins by market cap, break out of a months-long downtrend on Aug. 21. The token climbed roughly 20% at one point during the session and touched an intraday high of $1.43 before consolidating near $1.39 as of 12:30 UTC. Buyers first reclaimed $1.10, then pushed through the $1.18–$1.26 resistance band that had contained price action since June. The daily chart flipped to a bullish Supertrend reading at $1.14, while Chaikin Money Flow rose to 0.17, signaling that buying volume was outpacing selling pressure. Ripple, Clearpool and Cicada Partners also unveiled a proposed institutional credit market built on the XRP Ledger that would use the RLUSD stablecoin, although the design depends on pending XRPL amendments. The move followed a White House meeting on Aug. 19 in which President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass a digital-asset market-structure bill, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse in attendance. Derivatives heatmap data identifies the next cluster of leveraged short positions between $1.43 and $1.48, and a daily close above $1.40 would open the path toward the $1.50 psychological level that has triggered reversals several times in 2026.

Derivatives data showed the bear-market positioning that had built up in XRP perpetual futures unwinding quickly on Binance. The funding rate on Binance's XRP perpetual contracts reached 0.0101 on Aug. 21, the highest reading since October 2025 and well above its 30-day moving average. Funding rates are periodic payments between long and short position holders in perpetual contracts; a positive, elevated rate means leveraged longs are paying to keep exposure and that demand for upside has overtaken bearish bets. The 0.0101 level indicated that buyers were willing to pay a meaningful premium to hold long positions, a behavior often seen when the market expects continuation. The spike accompanied the spot move, indicating that the breakout was not solely a cash-market event. Analysts read the metric as evidence that derivatives traders are now weighting further gains more heavily. Still, a funding rate this far from normal leaves the market vulnerable to a reversal: if price momentum stalls, recently opened longs could be forced out, accelerating a pullback. Derivatives desks are therefore watching whether the rate stays elevated or begins to normalize during consolidation. The next few sessions will show whether the rally has room to run without forcing a positioning reset.

Open interest in Binance XRP perpetual futures reached approximately $461.3 million, a two-month high, according to derivatives data, up about 28% from around $360 million at the start of August. The expansion in outstanding contracts unfolded alongside a market-wide short squeeze, with more than $2.7 billion in short positions liquidated across digital-asset venues within 24 hours. The positioning shift is notable because XRP spent much of the week near $1.00, and bearish positions were closed abruptly as the breakout accelerated. Forced buy-backs by traders who had bet on lower prices added momentum to XRP and to the broader altcoin complex. The liquidation sweep extended across the digital-asset market, with XRP among the session's strongest gainers; the buying pressure was visible across major venues. The Binance-specific open-interest figure shows that leveraged demand, not only spot accumulation, is helping drive the breakout. Despite the bullish impulse, caution is building. Weekly inflows into XRP spot ETFs have cooled from a recent peak, and the rapid build in leverage cuts both ways: a reversal could produce cascading long liquidations just as the current trend produced short squeezes. With price now well above the moving averages that supported it last week, XRP is vulnerable to wider oscillations while the derivatives book resets.

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $1.4234 resistance at 84/100, with Value Area High and HVN among the contributing sources, while the closest support at $1.3502 scores 79/100 on Fibonacci 0.618 and ATR Lower inputs reinforced by 200-period moving averages. Derivatives positioning is long: funding reads 0.0063%, open interest is $976.5 million and the long/short account ratio is 2.58, with 72.1% long, consistent with a 72/100 Greed reading. With RSI at 83.79, the bullish case remains valid above $1.3502, and a sustained break of $1.4234 would open $1.4687. A daily close below $1.3502 would invalidate that view and make the bear-market scenario the default, with next support at $1.2680.