Author: flowie, ChainCatcher

Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

Today, the price of XRP broke through $3 for the first time since 2018. As of the time of writing, the price of XRP is currently reported at $3.17, with a 24-hour increase of 9.2%, and an increase of over 30% in the past week. The overall increase is far beyond the overall crypto market. In addition, the XRP price is now very close to its historical high of $3.4 set in January 2018.

On January 15th, local time in the US, on the last day of the appeal submission deadline, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to appeal the Ripple case, requesting the appeals court to re-examine the relevant rulings. However, the market generally believes that the SEC is "wasting time", and the new SEC under the leadership of the Trump administration will take a more friendly attitude towards cryptocurrencies, especially in a typical case like Ripple.

In addition, the expectation for the XRP ETF remains strong. In a recent interview, Ripple's President Monica Long stated that XRP is likely to be the next crypto spot ETF after Bit and Ether. Especially with the change of government, the approval of these applications will be accelerated.

In addition, the recent release of CPI and PPI data, with core PCE inflation lower than expected, has boosted the confidence of crypto market investors. The crypto market has also seen a broad-based rally.

XRP price has also taken this opportunity to achieve another surge. In its usual style.

XRP was issued in March 2013 and began trading in April 2014, with a total issuance of 100 billion units and an initial price of 0.0000007 yuan.

Since its inception, XRP has been unique. In simple terms, it has been range-bound for several years in bear markets, but in bull markets, it surges for half a year, and each time it pulls up, it's like an "Eiffel Tower", often tripling or even increasing tenfold in just over 10 days.

The first major surge of XRP can be traced back to the 2017 bull market. XRP was range-bound for over 700 days, and from early March 2017, it surged from around $0.005 to $0.054 in one month, an increase of over 10 times.

After a short-term decline of around 50%, it range-bound again for about a month, and from the end of April 2017, it surged from around $0.37 to $0.4 in half a month, an increase of 11 times.

It then fell by 60% again, and then range-bound for nearly 200 days until December 12, 2017, when it began a continuous surge from $0.24, reaching a historical high of $3.4 on January 8, 2018, an increase of 14 times in less than a month.

In other words, from March 2017 to January 2018, XRP experienced three instances of a surge of over 10 times in a short period of time, during which it was up for nearly half a year.

But with the end of the 2017 bull market, XRP also fell sharply, first declining 80% from the $3.4 high to around $0.7, and after several rounds of fluctuations, it fell to as low as $0.14, and then range-bound around $0.2 for two and a half years.

Until the start of a new bull market in 2020, XRP began to show signs of recovery from the end of 2020. From early November 2020, it surged from around $0.25 to $0.69 in about 20 days, an increase of nearly 3 times.

It then fell back by 60% to around $0.21, and after a consecutive surge for about 2 months, it returned to $0.62 on February 14, 2021, an increase of 3 times.

And it range-bound between $0.4 and $0.6 for a month, and from March 2021, it surged from $0.41 to $1.84, another increase of over 3 times. After the 3-fold surge, it experienced repeated declines and rebounds, with multiple 1-2 fold surges, but XRP was unable to break through $1.84.

In summary, in this bull market that started in 2020, XRP has had 3 short-term surges of 3 times, and multiple 1-2 fold short-term surges.

With the end of the 2020 bull market, in June 2022, XRP fell to around $0.3, returning to the state at the start of this bull market. It then range-bound around $0.4 for more than a year and a half, until July 12, 2023, when XRP rose from $0.47 to around $0.81 in two days, an increase of nearly 1 time, but then fell sharply and range-bound for more than a year.

It wasn't until November 2024 that it truly began to surge, rising from around $0.5 to $3.17, an increase of nearly 6 times in just over 2 months.

Ripple's Manipulation Tactics: Attracting Institutions to Sell, Coupled with Positive Hype

In the bear market, the XRP price is stable at $0.2-$0.5, with multiple surges of several times in each bull market, and the multiples are also relatively regular, which is hard to say is a normal market phenomenon, and is almost the result of a blatant market manipulation by the big players.

In 2020, the SEC's complaint against Ripple revealed Ripple's tactics of attracting institutions to sell and coupling it with positive hype to pump the price.

The XRP holdings are highly concentrated, with Ripple and its team holding the majority of XRP, making it easy to control the market.

The total supply of XRP is 100 billion units, and in the initial distribution of the tokens, 80% went to Ripple Labs, and 20% was distributed to the three founders Jed McCaleb, Chris Larsen, and Arthur Britto, who received 9 billion, 7 billion, and 4 billion units respectively.

Over time, Ripple Labs has reduced its holdings of XRP, selling them to institutional investors through over-the-counter trades and to retail investors through crypto exchanges, and the founders have also sold XRP multiple times to cash out.

Currently, the actual circulating XRP is 57% (the total supply is 100 billion units, and the amount of XRP circulating in the market is about 57 billion units). According to Ripple's quarterly reports, Ripple's current XRP holdings are divided into two parts, one part is directly held in wallets, and the other part is locked in the ledger and released monthly.

Looking at the top 100 XRP holding addresses according to coincarp statistics:

• The top 10 addresses hold over 40% of the total, and 6 of them are Ripple wallet addresses, accounting for a total of 30%;
• The top 20 addresses hold over 50%;
• The top 50 addresses hold about 63.83%;
• The top 100 addresses hold as much as 71.82%.

Among the top 100 holding addresses, Executive Chairman Chris Larsen has 6 wallets with a total of over 280 million XRP, accounting for over 2.8%. Another co-founder Arthur Britto has 7 wallets with a total of over 130 million XRP, accounting for over 1.3%.

In addition to Ripple, most of the top 100 holding addresses are exchange wallets. Upbit, Binance, Uphold, and Bithumb, these crypto exchanges hold 590 million, 205 million, 202 million, and 145 million XRP respectively, accounting for 5.9%, 2.5%, 2%, and 1.45% respectively.

SBI Holding, a Japanese conglomerate closely associated with Ripple, also owns over 310 million XRP, accounting for over 0.31%.

The XRP trading on the largest XRP holding exchange Upbit has also been an important driver of the recent XRP surge.

In addition, there are two large unknown addresses, rDdXiA3M4mYTQ4cFpWkVXfc2UaAXCFWeCK and rKDvgGUsNPZxsgmoemfrgXPS2Not4co2op, each holding over 350 million XRP, accounting for over 3.5%.

In addition to Ripple, the crypto exchanges holding the most XRP are an important force in driving the XRP price.

The SEC's lawsuit against Ripple documents show that in July 2019, a senior Ripple vice president collaborated with a US crypto exchange company to list XRP for trading. In an email to the counterparty, he said, "The main use case for XRP now is speculation, and exchanges are the main drivers of this use case".

Recommended reading: SEC Reveals Ripple's Manipulation Tactics: Attracting Institutions to Sell, Coupled with Positive Hype

Ripple not only pays these exchanges in XRP, but also provides volume incentives to meet trading volume targets.

Ripple has spent a lot of effort controlling the price and trading volume of XRP. For example, using algorithms to determine the timing and pricing of XRP sales to the market; paying market makers volume-based incentives.

Ripple has an "XRP Market Team" to monitor the price and trading volume of XRP. They regularly communicate with Ripple's XRP market makers on the XRP sales strategy to ensure that the amount of XRP sold does not exceed a certain percentage of the daily XRP trading volume.

Ripple co-founders Larsen and Garlinghouse will also soon participate in the "XRP Market Team" and issue various price control instructions.

Ripple's common market-making tactic is to coordinate with positive news to drive up the price. For example, on September 20, 2016, Ripple's CFO sent an email to market makers, asking them to use the entire $300,000 to buy XRP within 24 hours of the announcement.

In June 2020, Ripple employees reported to Garlinghouse and Larsen that due to Ripple's XRP sales, XRP began to underperform Bit, and they hoped Ripple would buy back XRP.

Garlinghouse then approved the buyback plan, and Ripple disclosed in its Q3 2020 market report that Ripple had purchased $45 million worth of XRP.

This was also the first time XRP surged in this bull market, rising from around $0.25 to $0.69, an increase of nearly 3 times, in about 20 days.

The rapid rise of XRP in this bull market is also in line with the pattern of price increase coordinated with news. Crypto KOL @sky_gpt has detailed the entire process.

In the two weeks before November 2024, Ripple densely released information through CEO Ggarling House interviews, reports, and various XRP business outlook-related news, with the intensity of the news seemingly increasing from light to heavy.

From November 6th to early December, compared to the vague industry outlook released during the sideways period, Ripple began to announce definite new project implementation plans and closely follow the hot spots, such as announcing tokenized market funds and multiple partners, and stating that XRP supports the Trump administration and has actually donated funds.

The rhythm is also more compact than the sideways period, with not only multiple Ripple executives being interviewed, but Ripple also steadily releasing news almost every one or two days.

XRP Lacks Actual Use Cases

Although Ripple has repeatedly emphasized various benefits in payments, stablecoins, and tokenized funds, XRP has not had actual use cases in Ripple's past business, and the future role of XRP in its ecosystem remains unclear.

Among Ripple's three main products, xCurrent, ODL cross-border payment platform, and xVia, the only one that can use XRP is ODL, which was launched in 2018. XRP serves as a medium for currency conversion in cross-border payments, where the payer exchanges fiat currency for XRP, and the recipient can then exchange the XRP for the local fiat currency.

Although Ripple has tried to promote this platform and the use of XRP through official subsidies, the high cost has not gained much attention.

Ripple has never disclosed the revenue from its cross-border software business, and compared to the software business, the real money-maker for Ripple has been selling XRP. A website owler once analyzed Ripple's total revenue, of which 80% came from selling XRP.

In the past year, Ripple has been selling XRP almost every quarter. As mentioned earlier, as of September 30, 2024, its total XRP holdings were 4,436,713,796, and the escrowed amount was 38,900,000,005. In the same period last year, on September 30, 2023, its total XRP was 5,258,162,324, and the escrowed amount was 41,300,000,005.

In the past year, Ripple has reduced its XRP holdings by nearly 3.22 billion, and based on an average price of about $0.5 per XRP during that period, Ripple has earned over $1.6 billion from selling XRP. SEC has also disclosed that XRP CEO Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Larsen made a profit of about $600 million from selling XRP before 2020.