XRP (Ripple) red-hot Whale swallowed $20 million worth of cryptocurrencies in 3 minutes

The XRP Army community has seen a surge in whale activity. Two mysterious addresses in a strikingly coordinated manner acquired and withdrew nearly 40 million pieces of XRP cryptocurrency worth more than $20 million from the world's largest exchange. The event, captured by the Whale Alert account on the X portal within a minute of occurrence, caused considerable consternation. Is there something we don't know about?

XRP (Ripple) devoured by whales

The withdrawals, made within seconds of each other, were directed to addresses activated on January 3, 2024. The first address, identified as "rfQ9E...k8Cvi," moved 19.90 million XRP ($10.75 million), followed by 18.54 million XRP ($10.01 million) to "rarG6...2bZKk." The parallel activities of these portfolios, from their activation dates to the recent massive withdrawals, suggest that they may be controlled by one and the same entity.

Meanwhile, Ripple itself was also active: 60 million XRP (worth about $32 million) was sent from the exchange-controlled wallet to an unidentified on-chain wallet. In principle, this indicates plans to "farm" the cryptocurrency, rather than, for example, sell it.
And what about the price itself? Ripple's native token, XRP, is currently in a sideways or downtrend (depends on which interval you take), with a price of $0.53-0.54. This contrasts with high activity on the project itself, which could possibly suggest insider buying ahead of announcements that have not yet been made public.

Hypothesis number one: the XRP ETF

Let's consider one of these as a speculation. Just recently, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse publicly expressed "interest" in an exchange-traded fund (ETF) with XRP cryptocurrency as the underlying asset during an interview with Bloomberg.
While he did not confirm the imminent launch of such an investment vehicle, Garlinghouse's comments underscore Ripple's vision for the future integration of XRP into the broader financial markets. In doing so, the CEO advocated the potential benefits of multiple ETFs based on digital assets for the entire cryptocurrency and financial sectors.