Kraken Moves 82M XRP ($246M) to Mystery Wallet – Whale Alert or Routine Ops?

Kraken just shuffled a jaw-dropping 82,277,388 XRP—worth roughly $246 million—to an undisclosed wallet. Was it a whale cashing out, an institutional player repositioning, or just another day in crypto’s wild west?

Timing is everything. With XRP’s price hovering at $2.99 (up 12% this month), the move sparks speculation: Is this a bullish accumulation play or a stealthy exit?

Meanwhile, traditional finance bros are still arguing about SWIFT transfers taking three business days. Keep up, folks.

Whale Alert on XWhale Alert on X Kraken Transfers Millions of XRP to Unidentified Address Notably, further details of the transaction showed it happened at exactly 12:50 (UTC) on Friday. Sending address “rLHzPs,” marked as a Kraken wallet, moved approximately $246.5 million to receiving address “rp7TCc,” whose identity remains unidentified according to Whale Alert. Nonetheless, The crypto Basic did additional research on the receiving address and identified that it also belonged to Kraken. Running the wallet through XRPScan, it showed that the address bears the name “Kraken (4).” Furthermore, it was activated by the sending address on December 16, 2024, confirming both wallets’ affiliation with Kraken. Kraken Has Been Moving XRP Lately Further market insight revealed that Kraken has been shifting XRP lately. For context, Whale Alert also reported another transaction involving an unmarked address and Kraken today. The said shuffle happened over 12 hours ago, data confirming it happened exactly at 00:44 (UTC) today. Notably, “rLHzPs,” which is the sending address from the earlier transaction, was part of this XRP shift, but this time as a receiving address. The unmarked sending address, “rJHkpN,” moved 31,852,903 XRP ($95 million) to the Kraken address today, according to XRPScan. Interestingly, we discovered that the sending address in this transaction also has an affiliation with Kraken. For context, XRPScan shows that address “rrhT2Hd” activated the sending address on July 10, 2024. Analysis also revealed that it was a “Kraken (1)” account that also activated it on June 21, 2024.  In simpler terms, both transactions were just Kraken shifting funds from one wallet to another, probably from its hot wallet to a secured self-custody wallet for storage or vice versa. Kraken Also Transferring Other Cryptocurrencies Notably, Whale Alert reported several other transactions involving Kraken and an unknown wallet today. Kraken moved 1.89 million LINK ($31.2 million) to an unmarked address by 11:16 (UTC) and 680 BTC ($78.4 million) by 09:31 (UTC).

Kraken Moving Cryptocurrencies to New AddressesKraken Moving Cryptocurrencies to New Addresses Remarkably, all transactions involved moving the cryptocurrencies from the Kraken Cold Wallet to multiple trading platforms. At the time of writing, the specific reason behind these transactions remains unknown. Still, their direction suggests it is to provide liquidity, potentially due to sell-offs as the market crashes.