The price of XRP is a paradox wrapped in a data anomaly. As of mid-October 2025, the digital asset is trading around $2.40, a staggering 440% climb from the year prior. It has reclaimed its spot as the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency, a position it lost during its protracted legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That fight is now over. In August, Ripple paid a relatively modest $125 million fine to settle the case, securing the one thing it always needed: regulatory clarity. The SEC affirmed that public sales of XRP do not constitute securities.
On the surface, the path forward looks clear. The “dark cloud” has lifted. U.S. exchanges from Coinbase to Kraken have relisted the token. A fleet of the world’s largest asset managers—Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree—have filed for spot XRP ETFs, with deadlines looming later this month. Bloomberg analysts have pegged the approval odds at nearly 100%. The consensus narrative is one of impending institutional floodgates, a supply shock from locked-up tokens, and a clear trajectory toward the price targets issued by firms like Standard Chartered, which sees $5 by year-end.
This is the story the market wants to believe. It’s clean, logical, and bullish. But the on-chain data is telling a different story entirely.
A Tale of Two Tapes
The bullish thesis is built on a foundation of seemingly unshakeable catalysts. With the SEC settlement in the rearview mirror, the primary obstacle for institutional adoption has been removed. The upcoming ETF decisions are not just a possibility; they are viewed as an inevitability. An approval would mechanize the flow of capital into XRP, just as it did for Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have already ridden their own ETF waves this year. Ripple itself is executing, applying for a U.S. banking charter and launching a dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, which cleverly burns a small amount of XRP with each transaction, creating a direct link between utility and value.
This narrative is powerful enough to make retail investors “diamond-hand” their positions through gut-wrenching volatility. And the volatility has been extreme, so much so that one 'XRP Going Nowhere': XRP Ledger Validator Reacts as Crazy Volatility Hits Market. A recent flash crash, triggered by a U.S.-China trade announcement, saw XRP plummet from $2.77 to $1.64 in minutes (a precipitous 40-41% drop). Hundreds of millions in leveraged positions were liquidated—over $150 million in XRP futures alone, to be more precise. Yet, buyers stepped back in, propping the price up. The sentiment is clear: any dip is a buying opportunity before the ETFs arrive.
But while retail traders and ETF speculators are looking at the horizon, the largest holders—the so-called whales—appear to be looking at the exit. And this is the part of the analysis that I find genuinely problematic. On-chain data, the immutable ledger of who is doing what, shows a clear pattern of distribution, not accumulation. In early October, roughly 320 million XRP, worth nearly $950 million, was moved to exchanges. One whale alone accounted for a sale of 160 million XRP. These are not the actions of sophisticated players positioning for a breakout. This is profit-taking on a massive scale.
Analysts at CryptoQuant and other on-chain firms have been flagging this for weeks. The warnings are clinical and direct: “selling pressure persists,” and the data “strongly suggests whales are positioning for a significant sell-off.” So, what gives? Why would the smartest money in the room be systematically offloading their holdings just as the biggest catalyst in XRP’s history is about to materialize?
The Pressure Cooker and the Exit Valve
This discrepancy has given rise to some creative theories, with one Market Analyst Alleges XRP Price Is Being Deliberately Suppressed, Who Are The Culprits?. Financial analyst Dr. Jim Willie, for example, claims that large institutions like BlackRock are deliberately suppressing the price below $3. This, the theory goes, allows them to acquire a “boatload” of XRP at a discount before the inevitable price explosion. It’s a compelling narrative because it neatly explains the contradiction: the price is being held down not by weakness, but by a coordinated plan of institutional accumulation.
The problem is that the on-chain data doesn’t support it. We are not seeing massive accumulation by new whale wallets. We are seeing established whale wallets sending their tokens to exchanges to be sold. This isn't suppression; it's distribution.
The XRP market right now is like a pressure cooker. The ETF hype, the retail enthusiasm, and the fundamental progress at Ripple are all cranking up the heat. Everyone is betting on a massive, explosive release of pressure upward. But the whales, the ones who control the largest supply, aren't waiting for the explosion. They are quietly opening the exit valve, letting steam out into the rally. They are selling their bags to the wave of optimistic buyers who are convinced that $5, $10, or even $20 is just around the corner.
This raises an uncomfortable question the market isn't asking. What if the ETF approval isn't the starting gun for the next bull run, but the final exit signal for those who bought in at $0.50 last year? It could very well become the largest liquidity event in XRP’s history, providing the perfect opportunity for whales to cash out their 440% gains into a frenzy of institutional and retail FOMO. The ultimate "buy the rumor, sell the news" event.
The recent price action underscores this fragility. XRP has been underperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are already benefiting from their own ETFs. While Bitcoin soared 10% to a new all-time high during a recent rally, XRP only managed a 5% gain. It’s losing ground against the market leaders, struggling to clear resistance at the $3.00 mark because every push higher is met with another wave of whale-sized sell orders. Talk is cheap, as one analyst said, and the market wants proof. Right now, the proof in the order books is pointing in the opposite direction of the hype.
A Divergence That Can't Be Ignored
Ultimately, an asset’s price is a function of supply and demand. The narrative around XRP is focused entirely on a hypothetical future demand from ETFs. But the current, observable data shows a very real increase in supply hitting the market from its largest holders. This is a fundamental divergence that cannot be ignored. While the possibility of a "perfect storm" rally exists, my analysis of the data suggests the more probable outcome is that the smart money is using the ETF narrative as the world's most convenient exit ramp. The risk for new investors isn't that the ETF gets denied. The real risk is that it gets approved, and they find themselves holding the bags that the whales were so eager to get rid of.