XRP Price Nears Capitulation Zone as Whales Keep Buying
XRP is drifting toward a capitulation zone as retail holders leave and large wallets keep adding. XRP has been a grind for months. No polish helps much here. Smaller holders look worn out, and the chart is still giving bulls very little to work with. My take: the on-chain split is the only part of this setup that deserves real attention. Retail wallets are selling into weakness. Some of the largest XRP holders appear to be buying. That does not prove the bottom is in. Most crypto bottoms look obvious only afterward. Still, this is the kind of ugly divergence that makes me pause.
Retail capitulation is showing up in profit-to-loss data, negative Network Realized PnL, and falling active addresses. The data for smaller holders is rough. The daily transaction volume profit-to-loss ratio rose to 3.802, with 22.04 million in realized profit against 5.79 million in realized losses. Translation: holders are using bounces or thin pockets of liquidity to leave after a long drawdown. Network Realized PnL was still deeply negative on July 7, which points to selling while the market is already weak. An Age Consumed spike on July 1 tells the same story, because older dormant coins suddenly moved. Confidence? Not really. That usually looks more like stress. Active addresses across 24-hour, 7-day, and 30-day periods have fallen steadily since January 2026. Whale transaction counts have softened too. Open interest has dropped from $1.32 billion to $764.57 million, so speculative money has not just cooled. It has backed away.
Whale accumulation, positive funding rates, and low MVRV readings suggest XRP may be trying to form a bottom. Now the uncomfortable part: the larger-holder data does not match the retail panic. Wallets with 10 million to 100 million XRP have kept accumulating through 2026, according to on-chain data. Mid-sized wallets holding 100,000 to 10 million XRP have been distributing. Smaller wallets, from 10 to 100,000 coins, have barely grown. That is not a one-day blip. It looks more like large holders building a position while everyone else loses patience. Why does this matter? Because bottoms often start with ownership changing hands before price starts behaving better. Funding rates also turned positive in July, which suggests short pressure has eased and derivatives traders are no longer leaning as hard against XRP. Every major MVRV window, including 30-day, 180-day, 1-year, and 3-year readings, remains below zero. By that measure, XRP is undervalued. I would not call that a buy signal. That is too clean. But it does resemble earlier crypto bottoming phases, including Bitcoin’s 2018 bear market, when larger buyers moved before the next cycle had really begun.
Macro conditions and regulation still matter, and whales may be betting on more clarity for XRP. Counter to the usual advice, this is not only an XRP chart story. The wider market still depends on interest rates, inflation, and traders’ appetite for risk. The Federal Reserve’s stance still matters for crypto, especially when liquidity gets tight. XRP also carries the regulatory layer, and I think traders still price that scar into the asset. The legal overhang has weighed on XRP for years. If whales are adding here, they may be betting on a better regulatory outcome, or at least a cleaner path forward. Is that speculative? Yes. But crypto can react fast when rules become easier to read. Spot Bitcoin ETF approval helped push BTC past $61.4K earlier this year, and stablecoin guidance has also shifted sentiment when traders thought the market was getting clearer rules.
XRP is still trapped in a descending parallel channel, and bulls need to clear resistance before the chart improves. Here is where I pull back a bit. The accumulation data may look better, but the chart has not turned yet. XRP remains inside a descending parallel channel that has shaped price action since the July 2025 peak near $3.65. The token is now hovering around the $1.00 psychological support level. If the broader crypto market weakens, especially if Bitcoin sells off harder, XRP could break below the channel and revisit the $0.80 support area. To change the bearish structure, buyers need to reclaim the channel’s upper trendline first. Then comes the real test around $1.40 to $1.60. Until XRP clears both areas, the technical setup stays fragile. Whales may be buying underneath the surface. Price has not confirmed it.
What this means
Retail selling and whale buying point to a possible large-holder accumulation phase. The split between tired retail holders and accumulating whales has the shape of a weak-hands-to-strong-hands move. I am careful with that phrase because crypto people abuse it constantly, usually right before price drops again. Yes, this contradicts the cautious tone above a little. Bear with me. Wallets holding 10 million to 100 million XRP have kept adding while smaller holders exit or sit on their hands. Positive funding rates and below-zero MVRV readings strengthen the case that bigger players see XRP as closer to a long-term bottom than a fresh breakdown. It is a setup. Not proof.
A breakout above the channel and the $1.40 to $1.60 zone would give the on-chain case real confirmation. Price is the next thing to watch, not wallet behavior alone. XRP needs to reclaim the upper trendline of its descending channel, then push through the $1.40 to $1.60 resistance area. Would that settle the argument? Not completely, but it would make the accumulation story much harder to dismiss. Broader market sentiment matters too, especially any shift in Federal Reserve policy that changes demand for risk assets. A clean move above $1.60 would be the first real sign that whale buying is turning into price strength. Until then, this is still a setup, not a victory lap.