Number of XRP Whales Dropped as it Continued to Lose Support

Ripple (XRP), which is presently the fourth-largest digital currency, almost ended the past year in the best way possible. From the Flare Network-planned Spark token airdrop and the coin’s price growth to over US$0.6 level, there were lots of excitement and activities going on with the XRP armies, not until the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) interrupted things. 

Can we say XRP Whales are Giving up Already?

Literally, everything began dying down, with the cryptocurrency dropping from that point to the current level around US$0.2. Meanwhile, XRP is presently up by 26.38 percent on the seven-day chart, per Coinmarketcap.

Notably, the cryptocurrency and its holders have seen more of the downside following the whole XRP-security saga by the US regulator. Consequently, the number of addresses holding XRP (especially the whale addresses) have been decreasing since the announcement was made by the SEC.

The number of XRP addresses holding at least one million coins decreased from 1,721 on December 21 to 1,567 on January 3, according to Coinmetrice’s latest “state of the network” report. 

XRP is Losing More Support

SEC’s announcement of charges against the blockchain company, Ripple, also caused exchanges to delist the cryptocurrency. These include the likes of Beaxy, Bittrex, Bistamp, including the US leading exchange, Coinbase. This could be seen as a strategy for these platforms to avoid legal issues with the regulator, should the court favor SEC’s statements that XRP is a security.  

Today, the popular crypto investment company, Grayscale announced the removal of XRP from their Digital Large Cap (DLC) fund, which tracks the market capitalization of the five largest digital currencies. Currently, the fund only covers Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The decision to delist the Ripple cryptocurrency came after DLC’s quarterly review on December 31.