XRP is reportedly the only altcoin punching above its weight when it comes to institutional interest.
In fact, according to Grayscale’s Head of Product and Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, the altcoin is the second-most-inquired crypto asset among advisory firms, after Bitcoin.
Even recent ETF flows echoed her comments.
Although most crypto assets saw net outflows in early February, XRP has since led new institutional demand for altcoins. Last week alone, CoinShares data showed that the altcoin attracted $33.4 million in net inflows while BTC bled $133.3 million.
Source: CoinShares
Similarly, for the week ending on the 7th of February, Ripple [XRP] led altcoin inflows with $63 million, bringing institutional demand close to $100 million in the past two weeks alone.
Which begs the question: why has the price struggled to stay above $2 despite recent strong institutional demand?
Upbit’s XRP selling pressure hits $5B
But some whales have been unloading XRP too.
According to analyst Dom, there has been unprecedented selling pressure from a sophisticated player or a group of players on the South Korea-based Upbit exchange.
The analyst said that over $5 billion in XRP has been sold on the exchange for the past few months. In January alone, Upbit saw a 370 million sell-off, bringing the overall dump to over 3.2 million XRP.
Source: X/Dom
According to the analysts, the same entity behind the Upbit dump triggered this week’s XRP price decline. Notably, net selling pressure hit 57 million XRP on the 15th of February, dragging the altcoin by nearly 10% from $1.6 to $1.47.
There has been a rising Ripple’s Exchange Reserve on Upbit, which suggests steady selling pressure had built up on the platform, corroborating the analyst’s finding.
Source: CryptoQuant
XRP vs Bitcoin
That said, the ongoing selling pressure may tip Bitcoin [BTC] to outperform it. Since October, whenever XRP surpasses BTC in investor returns (i.e., the XRP/BTC ratio rallies), it was followed by a retracement.
In February, XRP outperformed BTC by 20% and the ratio may be due for a correction.
If the past trends repeat, the altcoin may slip lower, especially if BTC doesn’t decisively rally above $70K.
Source: XRP/BTC ratio, TradingView
Final Summary
- Grayscale said XRP was the most inquired crypto asset after Bitcoin in some investor events.
- An entity has reportedly sold over $5 billion in XRP on the Upbit exchange, an analyst said.