XRP’s price movement over the past two weeks has been characterized by sharp fluctuations that have kept traders on edge. The token briefly plunged below $2 before staging a rapid recovery that saw it climb as high as $2.8, all within just a few days.
This interesting price action is an extension of the entire crypto market, which ended February on a crazy decline before bouncing back in early March. This bounce back was sparked by Donald Trump’s hinting about a crypto reserve in the US. However, on-chain data shows that the surge has been met with an equally dramatic sell-off by large holders.
Trump’s Crypto Announcement Causes XRP Price Surge
XRP enjoyed a sudden upward jolt following a surprise announcement by Donald Trump on Sunday, March 2. The US president revealed plans for a US Crypto Strategic Reserve that would include XRP alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano. The prospect of government-backed crypto reserves fueled a buying frenzy across the entire market. XRP registered an intraday rally of over 30% after Trump’s statement, briefly pushing its price towards the $3.00 mark again.
However, the celebratory mood proved short-lived. Within a day of the announcement, XRP gave back a chunk of its gains as sell orders flooded the market. After peaking above $2.8 during the Trump-fueled rally, the price quickly retreated by about 10%. By Tuesday, the asset was trading in the mid-$2 range again.
Interestingly, on-chain data shows that whale investors (those holding massive positions) have unloaded record amounts of the token in the wake of the rally. Miles Deutscher, a crypto market analyst, highlighted the trend on X (formerly Twitter) with a stark observation using data from the on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant.
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Deutscher’s post was accompanied by a chart pointing to heavy profit-taking by whales, and he described the market’s behavior as a textbook distribution phase.
The Altcoin In The Distribution Phase
A distribution phase is a period when early investors cash out en masse following a strong rally. In the case of XRP, early investors are those who bought the token during its multi-year bear rut under $0.5. This is based on a momentum that had been growing since late 2024, which saw the altcoin climb more than 500% from roughly $0.55 in early November to over $3 by January 2025.
As shown by the chart above, whales have been selling for a while and continue to do so after the recent Trump-induced rally. Particularly, the CryptoQuant chart shows negative whale flows peaking at over 180 million XRP in early March, which is its highest level in years.
Interestingly, exchange data shows a concurrent jump in supply on trading platforms. Binance, for example, has seen its XRP reserves spiking from 2.72 billion to 2.90 billion tokens in recent days.
At the time of writing, the token is trading at $2.46 and is starting to recover towards $3 again.
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