Ripple whales and sharks XRP holdings jump to all-time high

• XRP whales and sharks bought more coins in December to bring total addresses and percentage of supply to new highs.
• Large holders appear strongly bullish on the coin’s price, despite Ripple Labs’ ongoing battle with regulators.
• There are 1,617 wallet addresses with 1 million to 10 million XRP, with total holdings for these addresses about 7.23% of supply.

XRP has seen some massive accumulation by large holders in 2022, despite the bear market and all the baggage that has come with Ripple Labs’ court tussle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the market, the XRP price has remained in a downtrend since a sharp decline in May. The coin currently trades around $0.3437.

XRP whales and sharks push holdings to new highs

According to on-chain statistics shared by analytics firm Santiment, XRP addresses with 1 million to 10 million coins have added to their holdings as 2022 draws to a close. Per the platform, these groups of XRP holders – the category of sharks and whales – have recently seen their total number and percentage of supply surge to new all-time highs.

🐳🦈 #XRPNetwork whale and shark addresses that share the 1M to 10M $XRP tier have been rapidly accumulating to end 2022. In December, both the amount of these sized addresses (1,617) and their percentage of supply held (7.23%) have hit a new #AllTimeHigh. https://t.co/R8bDPUviq1 pic.twitter.com/4GyrMPxYPV

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 20, 2022

On-chain data shows the whale and shark cohorts in the XRP ecosystem that control wallets with 1 million to 10 million XRP increased in December to 1,617.

The rapid accumulation seen across these two tiers have come as the past few weeks saw crypto prices plummet amid the FTX contagion.

But the downturn appears to have offered large XRP accounts the opportunity to buy low, with the above category of addresses increasing their percentage share of circulating supply. As per the current stats, whales and sharks hold 7.23% of 50.34 billion XRP.

Both this and the number of addresses highlighted above are trending at a new all-time high.