Ripple’s XRP recovers following accumulation bias among investors
- XRP investors held onto their tokens despite the crypto market sell-off last week.
- The resilience among investors could be due to potential bullish catalysts in 2025.
- XRP could retest its all-time high resistance if it breaks above the upper boundary of a key symmetrical triangle pattern.
Ripple’s XRP is up 6% on Tuesday following a series of on-chain metrics which reveals investors in the remittance-based token held onto their assets despite the wider crypto market sell-off last week.
XRP investors show resilience in recent crypto market sell-off
XRP investors have remained calm despite last week’s market sell-off triggered by the Federal Reserve’s decision to have only two rate cuts in 2025.
Unlike most other cryptocurrencies, where investors rapidly shed their holdings, most XRP investors held onto their tokens, as depicted by the downtrend in the XRP Dormant Circulation across all coin age cohorts. This metric spikes when investors sell off their tokens rapidly and declines when investors hold onto their investments.
 Dormant [18.36.20, 24 Dec, 2024]-638706586098406783.png)
XRP Dormant Circulation & Mean Coin Age. Source: Santiment
A similar trend is evident in the XRP Mean Coin Age metric, which measures the average number of days all XRP tokens stayed in their current addresses. This metric has slowly increased since December 12, indicating XRP investors are slightly tilted toward accumulation rather than selling.
Notably, whales have accumulated over 260 million XRP tokens in the past five days.
 Whale [18.37.28, 24 Dec, 2024]-638706586715368626.png)
XRP Supply Distribution. Source: Santiment
The bias toward accumulation comes amid XRP investors holding onto an average profit of over 300% in the face of a crypto market sell-off. This shows growing resilience among XRP investors even with wider negative sentiments in the crypto market.
 Sentiment [18.38.19, 24 Dec, 2024]-638706587307682098.png)
XRP Weighted Sentiment. Source: Santiment
The holding attitude could be due to upcoming potential bullish catalysts, including expectations of an XRP ETF in 2025 and President-elect Donald Trump and a new Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) administration assuming office on January 20.
On the contrary, the less distribution XRP experienced could be because investors already booked significant profits between November 30 and December 17, as evidenced in the chart below.
 Profit & Loss [18.39.27, 24 Dec, 2024]-638706588034959233.png)
XRP Network Realized Profit/Loss. Source: Santiment
XRP’s uptrend resumption dependent on breakout above key trendline
XRP saw $6.6 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours, per Coinglass data. Liquidated long and short positions accounted for $2.02 million and $4.58 million, respectively.
After seeing a rejection near the $3.00 psychological level on December 3, XRP is consolidating within a symmetrical triangle pattern. The remittance-based token is now attempting a move upward after bouncing off the triangle’s support trendline near $2.1.
XRP/USDT daily chart
If XRP overcomes the upper boundary of this triangle pattern, it could rally to test its all-time high resistance at $3.55. However, a decline below the trendline’s lower boundary could spark a massive decline toward the $1.35 support level. The $1.96 level and 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) could serve as crucial support levels if such a scenario plays out.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) momentum indicator is slightly above its neutral level, indicating bullish momentum is mildly dominant. Meanwhile, the Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) is just below its neutral level, indicating a cross over to bullish dominance is imminent.
A daily candlestick close below $1.35 will invalidate the thesis.
Crypto ETF FAQs
An Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is an investment vehicle or an index that tracks the price of an underlying asset. ETFs can not only track a single asset, but a group of assets and sectors. For example, a Bitcoin ETF tracks Bitcoin’s price. ETF is a tool used by investors to gain exposure to a certain asset.
Yes. The first Bitcoin futures ETF in the US was approved by the US Securities & Exchange Commission in October 2021. A total of seven Bitcoin futures ETFs have been approved, with more than 20 still waiting for the regulator’s permission. The SEC says that the cryptocurrency industry is new and subject to manipulation, which is why it has been delaying crypto-related futures ETFs for the last few years.
Yes. The SEC approved in January 2024 the listing and trading of several Bitcoin spot Exchange-Traded Funds, opening the door to institutional capital and mainstream investors to trade the main crypto currency. The decision was hailed by the industry as a game changer.
The main advantage of crypto ETFs is the possibility of gaining exposure to a cryptocurrency without ownership, reducing the risk and cost of holding the asset. Other pros are a lower learning curve and higher security for investors since ETFs take charge of securing the underlying asset holdings. As for the main drawbacks, the main one is that as an investor you can’t have direct ownership of the asset, or, as they say in crypto, “not your keys, not your coins.” Other disadvantages are higher costs associated with holding crypto since ETFs charge fees for active management. Finally, even though investing in ETFs reduces the risk of holding an asset, price swings in the underlying cryptocurrency are likely to be reflected in the investment vehicle too.
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