The short version
- XRP vs Bitcoin: XRP rose 2.2% in Wednesday’s rally against 3.9% for Bitcoin and 6.6% for Ethereum, and it is down 12.7% in 30 days to Bitcoin’s 5.9%.
- It isn’t the escrow: Ripple released 1 billion XRP on November 1 and locked 700 million back up the same day, the same 300 million month as October.
- The bigger unknown is the 233.46 million XRP taken in the Binance hack: still unsold, and split into six new wallets early on Monday.
- Next: Sunday’s weekly close against Wednesday’s $1.3414 high. We’ll post it on Base Camp on X, and if the hacker’s wallets move, you’ll see it there first.
2.2%. That is all XRP managed on Wednesday, the day Bitcoin’s short squeeze lifted the whole market.
XRP vs Bitcoin wasn’t close. Bitcoin closed the day up 3.9% on Binance, and Ethereum rose 6.6%, its best day since September 18. XRP trades at $1.31 at the time of writing, still 12.7% lower than a month ago.
The easy answer is Ripple’s escrow. A billion XRP unlocked on Sunday. But the ledger says that isn’t it. So what is holding XRP back?
On Tuesday, the chart looked ready to go:
XRP IS BREAKING OUT!
After recording its tightest Bollinger Band squeeze since August, $XRP appears to be signaling where it wants to go next.
Price has now breached the upper Bollinger Band, suggesting a bullish breakout could be brewing.
The last time the bands were this
It went, briefly. XRP touched $1.3414 on Wednesday and closed at $1.3052.
XRP vs Bitcoin: How Far Behind Is XRP?
Further than one day shows. Wednesday was only the latest gap.
The rebound from the summer low tells the same story. Since July 1, Bitcoin is up 34% and Ethereum 51%. XRP is up 24%.
Priced in Bitcoin, XRP has lost 7.1% in 30 days. The XRP/BTC pair trades at 0.00001625, a whisker above its October 29 close of 0.00001587, the lowest since August 18.
To be fair, XRP is not the weakest major. Solana has done worse over the month. But XRP is the one people keep expecting to lead, and it hasn’t.
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Did the XRP Escrow Unlock Hold the Price Back?
No. The XRP escrow did exactly what it did in October.
At 00:00:02 UTC on Sunday, two escrows of 500 million XRP each opened, 1 billion XRP in total. Later that day, between 17:38 and 17:42 UTC, Ripple locked 700 million of it straight back up in three new escrows:
- 500 million XRP until June 1, 2029
- 100 million XRP until June 1, 2029
- 100 million XRP until July 1, 2029
That leaves 300 million XRP out, about $390 million at today’s price. In October it was the same split: 300 million and 400 million re-locked, 300 million kept. It has been the same 300 million almost every month since January 2025.
We pulled Ripple’s escrows from the XRP Ledger again this morning. The company still has 31.1 billion XRP locked in 99 escrows, and the queue now runs to July 1, 2029.
So supply from Ripple didn’t change. The 300 million is real selling pressure if Ripple sells it, but it was there in October too, and in September. It can’t explain why XRP fell behind this week.
SIDE TRAIL: XRP Escrow Unlock: 1 Billion Opens Nov 1, 700 Million Usually Goes Back
Where Is the XRP From the Binance Hack?
Still unsold, but no longer where it was. That is the supply question that actually changed this week.
When Binance was hacked on October 29, XRP went first. Between 20:05 and 20:09 UTC, five Binance hot wallets sent 233.46 million XRP to one address. The five payments on the ledger add up to exactly the figure in Binance’s own report.
Outflows across chains happened one after the other. XRP went first, then SOL shortly after, then BTC, ETH, USDT and TRX together, finally USDC.
Binance's BNB balance was left untouched.
XRP fell 6.7% that day, more than Bitcoin (4.1%) and Ethereum (4.5%).
Then the coins sat still for three days. Early on Monday, between 03:47 and 04:00 UTC, the attacker moved them. First a 1,000 XRP test to each of six new wallets, then the rest in blocks of 10, 30 and 40 million:
- Five wallets now hold 40 million XRP each.
- One holds 33.46 million.
Nothing has left those six wallets since. The only traffic in is dust payments and spam, the usual noise that follows a famous address.
That is 233.46 million XRP, about $305 million at the time of writing, held by someone who needs to sell it eventually. That is about three-quarters of what Ripple keeps in a month. And unlike a stablecoin, XRP itself can’t be frozen on its own ledger.
Nobody knows when or how it moves. Stolen funds from big hacks are often laundered over weeks or months. But traders can see the six wallets as well as we can, and a known seller waiting in the wings is a good reason to hold back.
Is the Crowd Already Long XRP?
Yes, much more than in Bitcoin or Ethereum. That matters on a squeeze day.
On OKX, the long/short account ratio for XRP futures was 2.96 on Wednesday: about three accounts long for every one short. Bitcoin was at 1.51 and Ethereum at 1.39. Wednesday’s rally was powered by shorts being forced to buy back. XRP simply had fewer of them to burn.
Open interest tells the same story. XRP futures on OKX grew from $112 million on October 28 to $132 million on Wednesday, up 18%, while the price slipped 1.4% over the same days. New positions, no progress. A lot of those traders are long and waiting, and longs who are waiting tend to sell into the first pop.
TRAIL MAP: Funding Rate and Open Interest Explained
XRP Price Analysis: Which Levels Matter Now?
For the XRP price, start with the weekly chart. XRP closed last week at $1.2507, its lowest weekly close since mid-August. This week is up about 4.5% so far, from a $1.2508 open.
On the daily chart, XRP sits between its two moving averages. The 200-day is flat at $1.27, right under the price. The 50-day is at $1.39 and falling.
Above, the levels are close together:
- $1.3414: Wednesday’s high, where the breakout stalled.
- $1.39 to $1.40: the 50-day average and the October 21 high.
Below, $1.24 to $1.26 is where XRP closed for five days straight after the hack, through Sunday’s unlock. Under it sits the October 30 low at $1.2002.
A weekly close above $1.3414 would be the first sign of XRP catching up. A slide back under the 200-day at $1.27 says the gap to Bitcoin is still growing.
Sunday’s weekly close is one test. Six quiet wallets are the other.
TheCryptoMonk has been trading since 2017 and reads the market from the top down. The focus is macro and the high timeframes: where stocks, rates and liquidity are heading, and what the weekly and monthly charts say about Bitcoin. Short-term noise matters less than the bigger trend.
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