XRP News Today: XRP Price Unmoved by 236.98 Billion Token Purchase

A mysterious whale recently acquired more than 236.98 billion XRP, a transaction that, under normal market conditions, should have had a significant impact on the price of XRP. However, the purchase failed to cause any noticeable change in the price, raising serious concerns about the transparency, liquidity, and price integrity of the XRP market.

The transaction, which took place on May 21, 2025, at 03:50:41 PM UTC, was recorded in Ledger 96,272,895 with a minimal transaction fee of 0.006 XRP. The funds were transferred from Kraken, one of the industry’s oldest and most reputable crypto exchanges, to an address identified as rns6NArrzCUwFUk2soU9vZCwJRNNaMURZGx with a destination tag of 1234. The total amount delivered was 236,982,972.019669 XRP, nearly a quarter of a billion tokens, and the on-chain specification for the transaction was marked as a standard payment. Despite the enormous transfer, the market remained unmoved, which is unusual for such a large transaction.

Crypto analyst DigitalG, known for his sharp assessments of macro-level movements in digital asset markets, took to X to voice a concern shared by many experienced market watchers. “When a whale buys more than a quarter of a billion XRP a couple of hours ago, without so much as a flicker in the unit price of XRP,” he wrote, “surely even the most trusting will suspect that this whole XRP market has a few fundamental issues.” This issue raises fundamental concerns about market confidence, as a well-functioning market would typically respond to large transactions with noticeable price movements. Its failure to do so suggests a serious lack of demand across major trading venues or potential market manipulation that renders real-time trading activity disconnected from visible on-chain movements.

XRP has long positioned itself as a fast, scalable, and cost-efficient blockchain solution for cross-border settlements and institutional finance. However, it has faced repeated criticism over its opaque market structure. Despite Ripple’s claims of decentralization, large-scale transactions and exchange flows suggest price manipulation through curated liquidity and algorithms, rather than natural supply and demand. Ripple’s escrow system, which periodically releases billions of XRP, has sparked controversy. Critics argue that such structures allow entities with insider access to manage or dampen volatility artificially, thus controlling price action in a way that undermines the free market ethos.

This transaction raises significant concerns for XRP ecosystem participants, suggesting either underreported trading volume or market manipulation that distorts price signals. Retail traders may begin to question the real-world value of technical indicators and on-chain metrics when such large flows can pass unnoticed by price charts. Institutional investors, meanwhile, may become wary of the asset’s reliability as a liquid instrument for financial operations, particularly if it appears the market is being insulated from natural price discovery.

XRP’s market dynamics are under scrutiny again due to the muted response to a major transaction. DigitalG’s observation underscores the need for greater transparency, more robust regulatory oversight, and an honest reckoning with the opaque mechanisms that govern XRP’s trading behavior. Until these questions are addressed head-on, skepticism about XRP’s price integrity might grow louder. For a token once heralded as the future of institutional crypto adoption, that’s a red flag the XRP community—and its leadership—can’t afford to ignore.