u.today 
The cryptocurrency $XRP, considered the "North Star" of the Ripple ecosystem, has faced heavy selling pressure over the past five days. It turns out the main driver of the price reversal is a large-scale exodus of "whales" — wallets holding at least 1 million $XRP — which redistributed and brought more than 30 million tokens to the market in this short period of time.
According to on-chain data from the analytics platform Santiment, published by analyst Ali Martinez, the combined holdings of these large addresses fell from 3.82 billion to 3.77 billion $XRP. This move by long-term holders injected excess liquidity into spot exchanges, fully offsetting the market's recent optimism.
Analyzing the ripple effect on the $XRP price
The price rally began on June 14 from a relatively stable level of $1.14 per $XRP, where unexpected news about a sharp decline in macroeconomic risks and the stabilization of global logistics chains served as a powerful buying catalyst. Renewed investor confidence triggered a wave of buying, pushing $XRP rapidly higher and sending it to a local peak near $1.29 by June 16.
However, the token failed to hold those highs, and as soon as the price approached key resistance, millionaire wallets began locking in profits en masse. Over the following three days, the chart formed a decline, breaking through support levels one after another and falling to $1.1273 per $XRP by June 19.
$XRP price action from June 14 to June 19 2026, Source:
TradingView
The situation was aggravated by a severe sell-off in the derivatives market, where a cascade of forced liquidations of leveraged long positions acted as an accelerator for the downtrend. The catalyst for this panic was the FOMC meeting, during which extremely hawkish rhetoric from new chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, froze expectations for an imminent interest rate cut.
Surprisingly, institutional investors are not giving in to panic and continue defending Ripple's "North Star," as data on U.S. spot $XRP ETFs shows steady capital inflows, with $5.30 million at the price peak on June 16 and $2.55 million more during the market decline on June 18.
The clear gap between the long-term strategy of funds and the aggressive spot selling by whales may indicate that the current exodus of large holders is temporary and speculative in nature. The next critical battleground for buyers may be the support zone near $1.05.
