- Whales have moved around $755 million worth of XRP over the previous 2 weeks.
- The market is currently testing resistance at the $0.38 handle.
- Support moving forward: $0.3635, $0.3449, $0.3185, $0.3028, $0.2858.
- Resistance moving forward: $0.38, $0.3943, $0.4178, $0.4280, $0.44, $0.4542, $0.4617.
Latest Ripple News
After being added to Binance as a base pair for the exchange and one of Ripple’s partners was bought by VISA, the cryptocurrency continues to receive acclaim, this time coming from the Weiss Rating agency.
The Weiss Rating agency provides authenticated ratings on the blockchain projects in which they believe to be the strongest based upon a plethora of criteria including community size, development team and the strength of their GitHub commits.
In one of their recent tweets, the ratings agency has acknowledged that Ripple has an edge over the rest of its competition due to the fact that cross-border payments are settled in seconds, which they have described as being “huge” for private investors and instructions alike.
#XRP strives to change the way we make cross border payments – using XRP, transactions can settle within seconds, and this is huge for private investors and institutions alike. We think the way XRP’s consensus works gives it competitive advantage over others in this area. #crypto
— Weiss Ratings (@WeissRatings) December 28, 2018
In other Ripple news, the Twitter handle @whale_alert has been notifying the community about some enormous transactions that have been occurring on the Ripple network.
On December 27, 2018, around 90 million Ripple tokens were moved from an unknown wallet to another unknown wallet. The total funds represent around $30 million, which was transacted with a low fee of 0.005 XRP.
🚨 🚨 🚨 90,000,000 #XRP (33,493,911 USD) transferred from Unknown wallet to Unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 27, 2018
However, the large movements did not stop there.
Over the following few days, in a total of 7 transactions, around 2.1 billion XRP tokens were moved amounting to around $755 million.
The funds were mainly moved to Ripple-owned escrow wallets and OTC distribution wallets owned by Ripple. The OTC wallets are mainly used to sell to private investors which has led many to speculate that some more huge partnerships will be announced within the coming weeks.
Let us continue to take a look at XRP/USD over the recent period and highlight any potential areas of support and resistance moving forward.
XRP Price Analysis
Over the past 24 hours of trading, XRP has seen a small price increase totaling 2.09% as the XRP token now trades hands at a price around $0.3750, at the time of writing.
Ripple is now ranked in 3rd position after Ethereum had taken over its market cap value earlier today.
Ripple has a total market cap value of $14.85 billion after witnessing a 32% price decline over the past 30 trading days. The 65-month old cryptocurrency project in now trading at a value that is 90% lower than the all-time high price.
Looking at the XRP/USD market from the short-term perspective above, we can see that since our last analysis, the XRP market rose all the way up into our expected resistance area provided by a short-term 1.618 Fibonacci Extension level (drawn in purple) priced at $0.4542.
As the XRP/USD market reached this area of resistance, the short-term bullish run halted — the market reversed and began to fall. XRP/USD then went on to retrace into support provided by the short-term .618 FIbonacci Retracement level (drawn in green) priced at $0.3449.
The market attempted to rebound from this level but failed to break above the bearish .382 Fibonacci Retracement level (drawn in red) priced at $0.3943. XRP/USD now trades at the $0.37 handle.
Trend: Bullish Above $0.46
The market is presently moving in a sideways condition at this moment in time.
Price action will need to go on to create a fresh high which breaks above the December 2018 high before we can call a long-term bullish run for the cryptocurrency. However, it is now safe to say that the previous long-term bearish trend may have wilted or even ceased to exist.
For the Ripple market to be considered bearish in the short term, we would need to see price action break below the support at the $0.3635 handle.
Where is the Resistance for XRP Above the $0.37 Handle?
If the bulls can re-engage and begin to drive price action higher, we can expect immediate significant resistance toward the upside to be located at the bearish .382 Fibonacci Retracement level (drawn in red) priced at $0.3943.
Further resistance above $0.40 can then be expected at the previous 1.272 FIbonacci Extension level (drawn in purple) priced at $0.4178. This is followed by the bearish .5 Fibonacci Retracement level (drawn in red) priced at $0.4280.
If the buyers can continue to climb above the $0.43 handle, more resistance above can be located at the 1.618 Fibonacci Extension level (drawn in purple) priced at $0.4542, followed by the bearish .618 Fibonacci Retracement level (drawn in red) priced at $0.4617.
Where is the Support for XRP Located Below $0.37?
If the sellers begin to cause XRP/USD to fall, we can expect immediate support toward the downside to be located initially at the short-term .5 and .618 Fibonacci Retracement levels (drawn in green), priced at $0.3635 and $0.3449 respectively.
If the market continues to break below $0.34, we can then expect more support beneath to be located at the short-term .786 and .886 Fibonacci Retracement levels (drawn in green), priced at $0.3185 and $0.3028 respectively.
The final level of support to highlight is found at the previous long-term downside 1.414 Fibonacci Extension level (drawn in lilac) priced at $0.2858.
Conclusion
The sheer size of the wallet movements may bring some uncertainty within the market as people wait to hear more about what the transactions are related to, considering the size.
However, this could also bring confidence to the network as people begin to realize that the Ripple network is efficient in moving large sums around with such low fees.
