XRP Community Worried About Price Manipulation

Stern Drew, a crypto investor, has kicked up quite a storm in the XRP world. He's talking about price manipulation. Big time. His analysis shows something fishy - a major player slashed their XRP holdings by 69%, dropping from 780 million tokens to just 199 million. Fast.

This wasn't small potatoes. The entity fell from fifth place in the XRP holder rankings. It seems deliberate. Not normal market stuff.

Weird Selling Patterns

The selloffs totaled about 581 million XRP. That's roughly $300 million. Strange timing.

About 40% went through over-the-counter desks linked to New York financial firms. Suspicious? Maybe.

These sales happened during every major XRP price dip. Even weirder - 72% of selling occurred between 2-5 a.m. UTC. Dead hours. Thin markets.

Drew noticed something else. The outflows were split across multiple wallets. Kind of hiding the scale. This activity seemed to cap XRP whenever it approached $1.20. Not a coincidence.

Why Would Someone Do This?

Drew has three theories:

1. Pressure from competing crypto groups, especially those in "ETHGate"

2. Wall Street playing games - push retail out, buy cheap later

3. Using XRP price as a bargaining chip in regulatory talks

Not entirely clear which is right.

Some Evidence

Drew's team created an "XRP Suppression Index." Fancy name. It showed a strong connection between big sells and price caps - correlation of 0.87. That's high.

Some XRP ended up in BlackRock-linked wallets. Other chunks moved to Hong Kong OTC desks right before Ripple's Asia announcements. Inside info? Looks that way.

Bigger Picture

If XRP is being pushed down, it matters to everyone. Drew thinks this might be about:

• Protecting old-school banking
• Fighting against XRP's growing adoption
• Slowing XRP's market impact

Drew thinks XRP threatens traditional finance. That's why these games are happening.

But he's optimistic. These tactics can't last forever. When they stop? XRP might soar.