An analyst has claimed that large Coinbase-linked holders are pinning XRP’s price with the buy and sell walls on both sides of the market.

Their thesis landed as the Ripple token hovered near $1.51, holding a tight range after a rally that more than doubled the asset’s price from its early-August low.

Whale Walls and a Split Order Book

CW posted a chart showing XRP consolidating between roughly $1.52 and $1.53, with heavy sell orders stacked above $1.70 and $2.00 and buy orders clustered just under $1.52.

“It is Coinbase whales that are controlling the price of XRP,” the account wrote, arguing that the walls are not there to push price up or down but to hold it in place, and tying the standoff specifically to US trading desks not yet ready for a rally.

They followed up later with data on futures positioning, suggesting the setup for a rally is building even though price has not moved.

The data showed whale long/short ratios on Binance and OKX both leaning bullish, with OKX’s whale position ratio at 8.16, but smart money sentiment stayed split: extremely bullish on OKX, extremely bearish on Bybit, and merely bearish on Binance, which was an improvement from a more bearish reading a day earlier. Taker volume was close to even, 48.74% long against 51.26% short.

In another post, CW said XRP had broken through its point of control and main resistance zone, with the sell wall now above price looking small by comparison.

ETF flow added another data point, with a net inflow of $13.82 million across XRP ETFs, split between $8.25 million on Bitwise’s fund, now at $551 million cumulative, $4.01 million into Franklin’s XRPZ, at $438 million cumulative, and $1.57 million on Canary’s XRPC fund.

Combined AUM sits at $1.441 billion, and total XRP ETF volume, spot and otherwise, topped $207 million for the day.

How XRP Got Here

CryptoPotato reported that XRP surged more than 65%, raising its market cap above $94 billion and briefly taking the position of the fourth-largest cryptocurrency ahead of BNB, although it later fell back to fifth.

The token saw a rally from below $1.00 to nearly $1.70 in under 72 hours, its highest level since January, before retracing, with market watchers like EGRAG CRYPTO considering $1.65 to $1.70 the level where its fate will be decided.

Diana, another trader active on X, laid out a wave count putting $1.79 as the first target if XRP clears resistance between $1.53 and $1.64, followed by $2.58 and $2.89 after a pullback toward $1.27 to $1.30.

At the time of writing, XRP was trading around $1.51, which is still a more than 50% jump in seven days. The token’s trading volume also went up by more than 11% from Monday’s numbers to hit $5.9 billion. However, it is still about 59% below its all-time high of 3.65, set in July 2025.

Source: CryptoPotato