XRP price has slowly formed a bullish pattern, pointing to an eventual rebound as whales buy and negotiations with Circle continue.
Ripple (XRP) was trading at $2.33 on Tuesday, down 12% from its highest point this week.
On-chain data shows that whales have continued to buy XRP as it experiences several key catalysts. One of these is the ongoing negotiations for Ripple Labs to acquire Circle, the creator of USD Coin (USDC).
A Circle buyout would propel Ripple Labs into becoming the second-biggest player in the stablecoin industry. It would also make Ripple the third most profitable crypto project after Tether (USDT) and Tron (TRX). TokenTerminal data shows that Circle has made $1.58 billion this year.
Circle would also help to complement Ripple USD (RLUSD), its recently-launched stablecoin, whose market cap stands at over $313 million.
Another top XRP catalyst is the growing demand for Ripple assets on Wall Street. For example, eleven companies have applied for a spot XRP ETF, more than Solana’s seven. Additionally, the recently launched Teucrium 2X XRP ETF, ticker XXRP, has gained over $106 million in assets.
CME Group has also launched a new regulated XRP futures, opening it to US investors. There are chances that one or more companies will offer ETFs to track these futures.
Polymarket data shows that the odds of a spot XRP ETF approval have jumped to over 80% this year. With XXRP fund having substantial inflows, there is a likelihood that these funds will also have demand from Wall Street investors.
Further, Ripple has continued growing its partnerships. It expanded in the UAE this week through integrations with Zand Bank and Mamo. This is part of Ripple’s strategy to grow its market share against Swift, which handles over $150 trillion annually.
These catalysts help explain why whales have continued buying XRP tokens. Santiment data shows that wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million tokens now hold over 6 billion tokens. Those holding between 100 million and 1 billion coins hold 9.74 billion tokens, up from 8.16 billion in April.
XRP price technical analysis
The daily chart shows that XRP price is wavering and has retested the 50-day Exponential Moving Average at $2.2850. It has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern, with the neckline at $2.5812.
The coin has already completed the formation of the head and shoulders structure and only needs to move above the neckline.
A move above the neckline at $2.5812 will point to more gains, potentially to the year-to-date high of $3.40, up by 45% from the current level. A drop below the psychological point at $2 will invalidate the bullish outlook.
