XRP is reportedly the only altcoin punching above its weight when it comes to institutional interest.
In reality, according to According to Grayscale’s Head of Product and Research, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, the altcoin is the second most in-demand crypto asset among consulting firms, after Bitcoin.
Even recent ETF flows have echoed her comments.
While most crypto assets saw net outflows in early February, XRP has since led new institutional demand for altcoins. Last week alone, CoinShares data showed the altcoin attracted $33.4 million in net inflows, while BTC lost $133.3 million.
Source: CoinShares
The same goes for the week ending February 7, Ripple [XRP] led altcoin inflows with $63 million, driving institutional demand to nearly $100 million in the last two weeks alone.
That begs the question: why has the price struggled to stay above $2 despite recent strong institutional demand?
Upbit’s XRP selling push is $5 billion
But some whales have also unloaded XRP.
According to analyst Stupidthere is unprecedented selling pressure from a sophisticated player or group of players on the South Korea-based Upbit exchange.
The analyst said more than $5 billion worth of XRP has been sold on the exchange in recent months. In January alone, Upbit saw a sell-off of 370 million, bringing the total dump to over 3.2 million XRP.
Source: X/Dom
According to the analysts, the same entity behind the Upbit dump caused this week’s XRP price drop. Notably, net selling pressure reached 57 million XRP on February 15, to tow the altcoin by almost 10% from $1.6 to $1.47.
There has been a rising Ripple’s Exchange Reserve on Upbit, suggesting steady selling pressure had been building on the platform, confirming the analyst’s findings.
Source: CryptoQuant
XRP vs Bitcoin
That said, continued selling pressure could tip Bitcoin over [BTC] to surpass it. Since October, whenever XRP surpasses BTC in investor returns (i.e. the XRP/BTC ratio rises), it has been followed by a retracement.
In February, XRP outperformed BTC by 20% and this ratio may be due for a correction.
If past trends repeat, the altcoin could move lower, especially if BTC doesn’t break decisively above $70,000.
Source: XRP/BTC ratio, TradingView
Final summary
- Grayscale said that XRP was the most in-demand crypto asset after Bitcoin at some investor events.
- An entity has reportedly sold more than $5 billion worth of XRP on the Upbit exchange, according to an analyst.