At press time on April 10, some 2.74 billion XRP were held on crypto exchanges, according to data retrieved by Finbold from market intelligence platform CryptoQuant.
This figure represents a 1-month low in the readily available XRP supply, which stood at 2.82 billion back on March 10.
Exchange supply tends to have an inverse correlation with prices. The less tokens held on exchanges, the smaller the selling pressure.
XRP was trading at a price of $2 at the time of writing, having reclaimed a crucial level of support in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff pause, which caused a rally across financial markets
The present constriction in XRP supply has set the stage for a large price move — but will it materialize?
Why XRP will more likely than not trade in tandem with the wider market
First things first — it’s important to keep the bullish catalysts that are in play in mind. XRP’s network activity hit an all-time high on Wednesday, April 9. A day earlier, XRP futures volume reached a monthly high of $21.6 billion, following a $500 million spike on Monday.
Moreover, Tuesday, April 8, also saw the release of the first XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF (NYSE Arca: XXRP). The fund saw $5 million in trading volume on its first day, placing it in the top 5% of ETF debuts.
However, there is a pretty significant stumbling block that will soon come into play — and it, like the exchange supply, has to do with XRP supply and demand dynamics. Ripple will unlock 1 billion tokens on May 1, per the token’s escrow schedule.
While most of the unlocked cryptocurrency is not sold on open exchanges, the amount that is sold is to the tune of hundreds of millions of tokens. Increased selling pressure will most likely blunt XRP’s upward trajectory, and in an environment where the cryptocurrency has to regain the $2.10 level and maintain it in order not to lose bullish momentum, this could bring about just enough uncertainty to prevent a breakthrough.
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