Key Points
- Tracked exchange wallets lost 133 million XRP within 7 days.
- Ripple released 1 billion XRP coins from custody on November 1st.
- Withdrawing funds from an exchange or unlocking custody does not mean that the assets have been sold.
Within the week ending October 31st, the balance of XRP in cryptocurrency exchange wallets decreased by 133 million units, just a few hours before Ripple completed the release of 1 billion XRP from custody as planned, worth approximately 1.25 billion US dollars.
According to the supply report from XRP Insights on October 31st, publicly listed exchange wallets held 22.48 billion XRP, which is lower than the approximately 22.61 billion from a week earlier. Meanwhile, two managed contracts controlled by Ripple released 500 million XRP each at 00:00 on November 1st UTC.
XRP Exchange balance decreases before unlocking in November
The decrease of 133 million XRP accounts for approximately 0.6% of the wallet balances on tracked exchanges over these 7 days.
It should be noted that this dataset contains publicly labeled managed addresses, including cold wallets. Transferring funds to unrecognized addresses or internal reorganizations within exchanges may affect these data, and does not necessarily indicate that investors have actually withdrawn their funds.
The latest figures also contrast with the increase in reserves by exchanges previously: over a three-day period in mid-October, nearly 84 million XRP coins flowed into tracked wallets.
At that time, Binance contributed a large portion of this increase, which sparked concerns about potential selling pressure. However, another analysis of whale capital flows showed that earlier this month, a significant amount of XRP flowed out of Binance and Upbit.
These constantly changing patterns indicate that exchange balances should be observed over multiple time periods, rather than being directly interpreted as a barometer of investor sentiment.
Ripple releases 1 billion XRP; managed holdings decrease
Ripple completed two managed unlocking transactions shortly after midnight on November 1st, UTC, releasing 500 million XRP coins in each transaction.
These transactions reduced the company's locked XRP balance from approximately 31.4 billion to 30.4 billion. According to the on-chain tracking data cited by TokenPost, as of UTC at 10:50, none of the portions unlocked in November have been transferred back to the new custodial contract yet.
This latest change occurred after an unusual October: two Ripple wallets retained the 1 billion XRP tokens that had been unlocked earlier, without making any external payments prior to October 29th.
This led the market to speculate for a time that the unlocking in November might temporarily increase the available quantity of XRP on the control addresses of these companies.
However, the monthly hosting mechanism of Ripple does not automatically invest all the unlocked funds directly into the trading market.
In September and October, Ripple transferred approximately 700 million XRP back to the new custodial contract, resulting in a net reduction of about 300 million in the locked supply for each cycle.
The previous unlocking of 1 billion XRP did not trigger the immediate selling that traders expected, which also illustrates this difference.
What do these changes mean for the price of XRP?
On November 1st, the trading price of XRP was close to $1.25; previously, in October, it fell by about 18%, making investors particularly sensitive to any changes that could affect the availability of the token.
Earlier data also showed that within another 30-day period, the total deposit volume of XRP on the exchange reached 6.05 billion coins, indicating that even though the balances in some wallets decreased, large-scale trading activities could still be occurring simultaneously.
Institutional demand has only provided limited support for prices. The US spot XRP ETF has attracted approximately $1.81 billion in capital inflows, but a recent cost-based analysis estimates that unrealized losses are close to $489 million.
