XRP just pulled off an 8% climb over the last five weeks, moving from a $1.00 floor up to around $1.16. Underneath that price action sits a massive shift in who actually owns the asset. Small investors are selling off their bags, while institutional-sized players are buying them up.
Data outlines a sharp divide in market sentiment. Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million tokens bumped their collective balances up by 2.8%. Over that exact same five-week window, the smallest retail wallets dumped 5.2% of their holdings. This aggressive buying spree shows up clearly in a recent Santiment data breakdown detailing the exact percentage split.
This isn’t a sudden pivot. Large whales in the 10 million to 100 million token tier have spent the last year executing a massive, patient accumulation strategy. Since XRP peaked near $3.65 in July 2025, these specific accounts purchased an additional 4.63 billion tokens. That brings their combined war chest to a record 12.13 billion tokens.
Speculators are also changing their tune. Funding rates in the derivatives market officially turned positive in July 2026. That means short sellers are backing off and bullish bets are starting to cost more to keep open.
The appetite from larger buyers lines up with some major utility upgrades for the network. Industry observers point to the upcoming RLUSD stablecoin integration and potential ETF access products as the primary fundamental catalysts driving the big money.
The $1.40 Resistance Zone Will Decide the Next Breakout
Despite the heavy buying pressure from whales, XRP is technically still stuck. The token remains trapped inside a long-term descending parallel channel. To actually break the ongoing bearish structure, buyers have to push the price through a heavy resistance zone sitting between $1.40 and $1.60.
If the broader crypto market weakens before that happens, the token risks sliding back down toward the $0.80 support line. But the internal metrics look optimistic. Multiple timeframes of the MVRV ratio—covering the 30-day, 180-day, 1-year, and 3-year charts—are all currently sitting below the zero line.
That data places the token firmly in an undervalued zone, historically speaking. When retail traders capitulate while whales quietly absorb the liquidity, it usually points to a structural market bottom rather than a temporary bounce.