240 Million XRP Pulled From Major Exchanges Since Early Summer: Why It Matters

XRP’s struggle near $1 continues even as its peers display modest gains this week. The crypto asset is down by almost 10% over the past month.

Despite the weakness, much more XRP is being withdrawn than deposited across major platforms.

Reserves Slide

According to the latest analysis shared by CryptoQuant, XRP reserves across Upbit, Binance, and Bithumb have fallen by roughly 240 million from their late-May and early-June levels, as of August 19. South Korean giant Upbit held 6.40 billion XRP, down from 6.51 billion on May 30, which is a decline of about 110 million, or 1.7%.

The figures for Bithumb fell to 1.82 billion from 1.85 billion on June 2, a decrease of roughly 30 million, or 1.6%. Meanwhile, Binance recorded the largest percentage decline, with its reserves for the token dropping to 2.62 billion from 2.72 billion over the same period, which translates to a reduction of approximately 100 million XRP, or 3.7%.

Combined reserves across the three exchanges decreased from about 11.08 billion to 10.84 billion, representing a decline of roughly 2.2%. Despite the overall reduction, Upbit remains the largest holder of the crypto asset among the three exchanges. In fact, Upbit and Bithumb together hold about 8.22 billion XRP and account for nearly 76% of the reserves tracked across the three platforms.

The falling exchange reserves come as wallet activity across major exchanges turns more focused on withdrawals. As recently reported by CryptoPotato, Coinbase recorded a seven-day net wallet count of -14,300 as of August 18. The exchange accounted for 47.3% of the total absolute imbalance, its highest share since July 2024.

Binance posted a net wallet count of -3,270, while Crypto.com recorded -2,680. Both exchanges moved into negative territory on July 18, almost a week after Coinbase. Binance’s share of the overall imbalance also rose from nearly zero on July 16 to around 10%. Upbit, however, saw its share fall to about 12% from 40% in June.

Whale Activity

The asset’s weak price performance has not stopped large transactions from picking up on the XRP Ledger. Data shared by crypto analyst Ali Martinez revealed that transactions worth more than $1 million jumped 280% in a single day and reached nearly 40, compared with around 10 during each of the previous two days.

The spike came shortly after wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million XRP accumulated about 72 million tokens in one day.

Network activity has also picked up, as the ledger recorded nearly 50,000 active addresses over a 24-hour period last week. Despite the rise in activity, social sentiment around XRP fell to a three-month low.