Now trading above $2 — more than thrice its pre-rally base from October 2024 — XRP has become one of the best-performing large-cap tokens over the past 8 months. Investors who bought below 60 cents are sitting on gains upward of 300%, prompting a sharp pickup in profit-taking.
According to on-chain data from Glassnode, the 7-day simple moving average (SMA) of realized profits from XRP wallets hit $68.8 million earlier this month, the highest in over a year. That’s a clear sign of distribution pressure, with early accumulators cashing out into strength as the token tests key resistance levels just below its 2021 peak.
That profit-taking pressure may help explain XRP’s failure to break above $2.20 in recent sessions, despite multiple bullish headlines and technical tailwinds.
Read more: XRP Drops 5% as High-Volume Selling Pressure Dominates Market
While the broader setup remains positive, supported by regulatory clarity in the U.S. and Ripple’s growing push into tokenized asset infrastructure, the near-term price action reflects a supply overhang from long-term holders.
A recent CryptoQuant analysis showed that the 1-year cumulative buy/sell quote volume difference for altcoins (excluding BTC and ETH) — a proxy for net investor flows — currently stands at negative $36 billion. That’s a sharp reversal from December 2024, when the metric briefly flipped positive, marking a local top for altcoins.
Since then, it’s been a one-way bleed, with “altcoin investors MIA,” CryptoQuant independent analyst Burak Kesmeci said in a Thursday post.
Despite pockets of strength in XRP, SOL, and a few narrative tokens tied to real-world assets (RWAs), the broader altcoin ecosystem remains stuck in a bear market, he noted.
Unless risk appetite returns or capital flows back into Layer 1s, DeFi, and gaming, hopes of an “altseason” may continue to fade into the summer.
