The cryptocurrency market has somewhat cooled off over the previous couple of days, however the XRP price seems to have picked up momentum of its own in that period. The normally tame cryptocurrency appears to be decoupling from the market, outperforming the opposite large-cap assets in the highest ten.

In response to blockchain analytics firm Santiment, the value of XRP broke its three-year high on Binance, the world’s largest exchange, on Saturday, November 16. This marks the primary time the altcoin might be reaching this price level since November 11, 2021. 

Santiment Identifies Catalysts Behind XRP’s Price Surge

In its latest post on the X platform, Santiment revealed that the main token holders in whale and shark cohorts have been chargeable for the recent XRP price rally. Specifically, whale and shark addresses holding between 1 million and 100 million tokens have been singled out by the on-chain analytics firm.

For context, a crypto whale (and sometimes a shark) refers to an entity that wields significant influence available on the market dynamics as a consequence of their substantial holdings. Except for their direct influence on price dynamics, whales not directly affect the market as other investors are inclined to move in the identical direction in anticipation of potential shifts.

Source: Santiment/X

The most recent on-chain data from Santiment shows that the aforementioned cohort of large-scale investors has collectively bought 453.3 million XRP tokens (value greater than $526 million) up to now week. Consequently, the numerous buying activity has buoyed the XRP price over the past few days.

The on-chain analytics firm noted that tokens being amassed by the whales and sharks are primarily emerging from retail traders who’re selling their bags for small profits on the recent rally. Sentiment data shows that wallets holding lower than 1 million XRP have collectively offloaded 75.7 million tokens (comparable to $87.9 million) up to now week.

From a historical perspective, that retail investors are offloading their tokens could be good for the XRP price in the long run. 

On this regard, Santiment noted:

Historically, any cryptocurrency tends to see positive market cap growth when its key stakeholders are increasing their holdings and confidence, while simultaneous retail FUD fuels this growth more.

XRP Price At A Glance

As of this writing, the value of XRP is closing in on $1.1, shining up to now 24 hours with a greater than 23% rally. The altcoin is one in all the best-performing assets on the weekly timeframe, climbing over 116% within the last seven days. 

The worth of XRP breaks 3-month high on the day by day timeframe | Source: XRPUSDT chart on TradingView

Featured image created by Dall-E, chart from TradingView