XRP (XRP) value prolonged its slide on Wednesday, including to a downtrend that has erased 44% of its worth over the previous yr.
Amid this, a market analyst has highlighted uncommon buying and selling exercise rising from South Korea’s largest crypto change, elevating questions on its potential influence on XRP’s value dynamics.
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Examine of 82 Million Trades Flags Structural Promoting in XRP/KRW Market on Upbit
Crypto analyst Dom claims to have uncovered what he describes as an almost year-long, multi-billion-dollar XRP promoting pipeline. In a thread revealed on X (previously Twitter), Dom mentioned his findings are primarily based on 82 million tick-level XRP/KRW trades on Upbit, alongside 444 million trades from Binance for comparability.
In line with his evaluation, Upbit’s XRP pair has recorded a web unfavorable cumulative quantity delta each month for the previous 10 months.
“It started with yesterday’s price action. -57M XRP in CVD over 17 hours. It looked insane. So I ran forensic queries – bot fingerprinting, iceberg detection, wash trade checks. The selling was real. Algorithmic. 61% of trades fired within 10ms. Single bot running 17 hours straight with one 33-second pause,” he wrote.
XRP/KRW Promoting on Upbit. Supply: X/Dom
Dom highlighted a number of months with notably heavy unfavorable cumulative quantity delta (CVD), together with April (-165 million XRP), July (-197 million XRP), October (-382 million XRP), and January (-370 million XRP). In complete, he experiences that only one of 46 weeks within the pattern interval confirmed web optimistic shopping for strain.
“And it’s not ‘the market’ – Binance XRP/USDT carries 2-5x less sell pressure on the same coin (shocker). In June, Binance was net positive while Upbit bled -218M. The hourly correlation between the two venues is only 0.37. Upbit’s flow is largely its own thing,” the publish added.
Dom argues the promoting seems algorithmic. Between 57% and 60% of trades had been executed inside 10 milliseconds, a sample sometimes related to automated techniques. He additionally noticed that promote orders continuously appeared in round-number sizes equivalent to 10, 100, or 1,000 XRP.
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In the meantime, purchase orders had been typically fractional quantities like 2.537 XRP, in line with KRW-denominated retail purchases.
“Ten million fractional buy orders over 10 months. Compared to the sell side running mechanical round number clips. Two completely different profiles trading against each other on the same venue,” the analyst added.
Moreover, the analyst famous that from April to September, XRP on Upbit reportedly traded at a 3% to six% low cost to Binance, a “reverse Kimchi Discount.”
“The sellers were accepting 6% worse fills than available on global markets, for many months. They don’t care about the price. They need KRW, are mandated to use Upbit, and/or are Korean holders taking profit,” he acknowledged. “Then October 10 happened. The premium has only briefly gone negative since and the sellers? They doubled their daily rate. From -6.3M/day to -11.2M/day.”
He estimates that the general exercise accounts for 3.3 billion XRP, price $5 billion, in “net selling.” This represents about 5.4% of the token’s circulating provide. Whereas Dom doesn’t establish a selected entity behind the exercise, he describes the movement as constant, 24/7, and infrastructure-like fairly than discretionary buying and selling.
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“So who has enough XRP to sell 300-400M per month for a year straight, doesn’t care about 6% discounts, runs identical algo infrastructure 24/7 and needs KRW specifically or is in some walled garden and can only use Upbit? AND who are they selling to? Who’s been on the other side of that trade? It could be 1 entity, 50 entities or 10k people I’ll let you speculate,” Dom remarked.
Why Does This Matter?
This issues as a result of sustained, large-scale promoting could affect value dynamics over time. A constant movement of promote orders could restrict upward momentum, intensify declines during times of market stress, and soak up shopping for demand earlier than it interprets into significant value appreciation.
The influence is especially related on condition that XRP was probably the most traded asset on Upbit in 2025. If this sample is correct, it will recommend {that a} vital supply of provide has been energetic inside one of many world’s most energetic XRP markets, with retail members continuously on the alternative aspect of these trades.
Ought to that promoting strain lower or cease, general market conduct may shift because the steadiness between provide and demand adjusts.
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The findings come as XRP balances on Upbit have reached a one-year excessive, exceeding 6.4 billion XRP, accounting for almost 10% of the circulating provide.
In distinction, change reserves continued to say no on Binance, reflecting a divergence between Korean XRP buyers and members in different markets.
Binance XRP reserves simply hit their lowest degree since early 2024.
700 million XRP left the change from the November peak. At present costs, that is tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} — gone from change wallets.
You promote on exchanges. You progress off while you intend to carry. $XRP… pic.twitter.com/7iUee7SqdV
— Ripple Bull Winkle | Crypto Researcher 🚀🚨 (@RipBullWinkle) February 17, 2026
Taken collectively, the reported structural promoting on Upbit and the rise in XRP balances on the change level to a sustained movement of tokens circulating inside that venue. On the identical time, contrasting reserve tendencies and accumulation patterns noticed on different exchanges spotlight a divergence in regional market conduct.
