XRP is under $1 but is ‘smart money’ keeping it alive?

Utkarsh Gupta
XRP
Source: Unsplash

2021 has been a memorable year for most top digital assets but XRP had a particularly strange one. The digital asset began its year on a decline before collectively breaking into a bullish trend. It reached a top of $1.96 on 14th April but since then, it hasn’t come close to its yearly top. During the 2nd half of the year, assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum registered new ATH levels but XRP did not even cross the $1.50 threshold.

Now, bearish pressure has gripped the asset again, and the token remains far off from its 2017 all-time high. On 4th December, it fell down to $0.60 so the question remains, Is XRP’s time as a major asset coming to an end?

XRP Whales fail to give up

If it was up to XRP holders, definitely not. According to recent statistics, XRP smart whale millionaires have continued on their 1-year accumulation trend. ‘Smart Whales’ are basically an investor class that is on the institutional level and these are addresses with 1m-10million XRP tokens.

Moreover, these XRP whales have increased their holdings by 6% in the past 3 months. It is important to note that in those three months, XRP’s value has dropped by almost 40%.

In addition to these statistics, the investment value is also pretty enticing.

XRP’s MVRV ratio screams of ‘buying opportunity’

Source: Trading View

At the moment, XRP’s market value to realized value(MVRV) is presenting an interesting proposition. Both MVRV ratio of 30-day and 365-day is indicative of a buying opportunity since both the indicators are negative at press time. A negative MVRV ratio means that the price of the token should rise from here since its realized value is not reciprocating the market transaction value.

Similarly, the active address price divergence suggested a similar narrative.

Source: Trading View

While XRP’s value could be down, the number of active addresses for the token has increased over the past few months. It means transactional activity has remained very high on average but the price is yet to mirror its growth.

Is the token becoming a market follower?

Not quite, but the asset has been reactive to bearish momentum. There is a lack of demand for the asset from new crypto investors as new money is flocking to assets such as Solana, Cardano, Shiba Inu, etc. While its on-chain activity is significant, it is uncertain how XRP’s price can rally forward with the sole support of whales.