XRP price prediction: whale outflows from Binance fall to $49.7 million: twice as strong as Bitcoin

This figure is documented: the 90-day average of XRP outflows from whale addresses at Binance stands at $49.7 million. That is the lowest level since October 2021, and it sits around 98.6 percent below the high of roughly $3.5 billion from February 2025. The data comes from the analytics firm CryptoQuant and was reported by The Crypto Basic on Wednesday, October 21. Our own reading follows further down: a drying-up outflow is a weaker signal than a fresh inflow, and it does not explain today's price gain.

XRP trades at $1.39 on Wednesday evening, or 1.24 euros. Over the past 24 hours the range ran between $1.32 and $1.39, the daily gain is 5.6 percent and the weekly gain 5.0 percent. Market capitalisation stands at $88.03 billion, daily turnover at $1.85 billion. The figures are taken from CoinGecko's market overview, queried on Wednesday evening. Bitcoin is up 2.8 percent the same evening, Ethereum 3.3 percent, Solana 3.0 percent. XRP is therefore rising a good twice as strongly as Bitcoin. Where the price can point over a horizon of months is set out in our XRP price prediction.

$49.7 million: the smallest amount of XRP to leave Binance since October 2021

Whale addresses, in CryptoQuant's measurement, are the addresses that move volumes large enough for single transactions to show up in the statistics. The value at issue here is no daily figure but a moving average over 90 days. That smoothing is why the number says anything at all: single days swing by multiples at XRP, and the 90-day average shows the level.

That level now stands at $49.7 million a day. For comparison: in February 2025 the same average sat at roughly $3.5 billion, and individual daily peaks at the time exceeded $10 billion according to the report. The drop from $3.5 billion to $49.7 million works out at a fall of about 98.6 percent. The metric last stood that low in October 2021, five years ago.

An outflow from the exchange is no purchase: what the number proves and what it does not

An outflow is a transfer from an exchange address to an address outside the exchange. The move proves two things: the coins have left the order book, and somebody had a reason to take them away. What it does not prove is a purchase. A large address can shift XRP to a custodian, redistribute it between its own addresses or make it available for a deal away from the exchange. CryptoQuant itself notes in the publication that an outflow does not demonstrate that a whale address has bought or intends to hold.

What matters for the price is the indirect route: when coins leave the exchange, the supply available there in the short term falls. If the same amount of buying interest then meets a thinner order book, the same order moves the price further. That is why many market participants read high outflows as a sign of tightening supply. The current reading is the opposite: barely anything is flowing out. Supply at the exchange is not shrinking right now, it is sitting still.

February 2025 against October 2026: one metric, two market situations

The comparison over time is the more revealing half of the finding. In February 2025 XRP traded in the region of $3.30, close to the high of that cycle; the all-time high of $3.65 dates from July 17, 2025. In that phase large addresses pulled billions off Binance every day. Today XRP stands at $1.39, so 61.8 percent below the all-time high, and the same addresses move a fiftieth of that.

That runs against a widespread pattern. Through 2022 and 2023 XRP traded mostly between $0.30 and $0.70, and Binance still showed substantial outflow peaks from whale addresses in that period. Low prices and large outflows occurred together back then. This time the second half is missing. CryptoQuant offers an explanation: XRP has fallen less deeply in this downturn than in the earlier ones, so the conditions that drove large addresses to accumulate then are not present at the moment.

Why CryptoQuant does not present its own number as a buy signal

The analytics firm expressly frames the value as a quantity to watch and not as confirmation of further price losses. That restraint is appropriate, because the metric allows two readings. The first: whoever is not withdrawing is not selling either, so supply at the exchange is quiet. The second: whoever is not withdrawing is not accumulating either, so the demand that used to come from this group is absent. Both readings are compatible with the same number.

For an assessment that means the $49.7 million describe a state, not a direction. Anyone deriving a price target from it is presenting an assumption about which of the two readings holds as a finding. Only the state is demonstrable.

The futures market alongside: 5.08 million XRP in longs on Bitfinex

A second data point from the same day shows where positioning has actually changed, and it comes from the futures market rather than from the blockchain. Long positions on XRP at the exchange Bitfinex stand at 5.080 million tokens; on October 20 they were 5.088 million. That is the highest level in three weeks. The rise began on October 13, after positions had fallen for weeks.

The reference point: on September 22 the same longs stood at 7.539 million tokens, the highest value in 21 months. After a price drop of 4.52 percent on September 23 they fell by 1.241 million tokens within a day. Across the broader derivatives market, CoinGlass reports $1.20 billion on the long side against $1.15 billion on the short side over 24 hours, or 51.02 against 48.98 percent. The figures come from the analysis of the Bitfinex positions dated October 21.

Two observations therefore sit side by side. On the blockchain, large addresses are moving less than at any point in five years. On the futures market, traders are building leveraged positions. Today's daily gain of 5.6 percent fits the second observation better than the first, because leveraged demand acts on the price immediately while an absent outflow does not act at all. If you use leveraged positions you carry liquidation risk: once the collateral no longer covers it, the exchange closes the position, and a setback of a few percent can wipe out the stake entirely.

The $1.40 from our Tuesday article has been reached

This desk's most recent XRP piece appeared on Tuesday, October 20, and dealt with the end of the 13-week inflow streak at the US spot ETFs. It noted XRP at $1.30 in a daily range of $1.29 to $1.32 and named $1.40 as the next orientation to the upside. You can read it in our piece on the broken ETF inflow streak of October 20.

Three things have changed since then. First the price: $1.30 has become $1.39, a gain of 6.9 percent in two days. Second the $1.32 level, which was Tuesday's daily high and now serves as the daily low; it has switched sides. Third the orientation named then at $1.40, which the price reached from below on Wednesday evening without so far breaking through it. What has not arrived in those two days is a documented fresh inflow into the funds. Today's rise is running without that support.

The levels that hold now, and what they depend on

To the downside the first level is $1.32, today's daily low and at the same time Tuesday's daily high. A level that turns from resistance into support is interesting because orders from the previous move sit there on both sides. If the price falls below it, the next round orientation is $1.25, or roughly 1.12 euros.

To the upside $1.40 is the immediate hurdle, because that is where the price stopped today. Above it sits $1.50, the level from October 6. The path from $1.39 to $1.50 would amount to a full return to the level of early October. In euro terms today's range runs between 1.18 and 1.24 euros, with the exchange rate moving alongside, so euro levels never correspond exactly to dollar levels. All these levels are reference points from the price history and no promise about the direction ahead.

Our assessment: a drying-up outflow carries no price rise

From this desk's point of view the CryptoQuant finding is interesting but weaker for the price question than the five-year marker makes it sound. The mechanics support that: an absent outflow adds nothing to the market, it merely removes a movement. So does the comparison over time, because at the lows of 2022 and 2023 low prices went together with high outflows, and exactly that accompaniment is missing now. Today's rise of 5.6 percent has a closer explanation, namely the long positions at Bitfinex that have been climbing again since October 13.

Against that stands the fact that a quiet exchange balance keeps selling pressure away. When large addresses neither withdraw nor deposit, the market also lacks the supply that braked earlier recoveries. Two testable points therefore remain for judging the coming month: whether fund inflows return, and whether the long positions at Bitfinex hold above 5 million tokens. If both fall away, the price has no basis above $1.40. None of this is a buy or sell recommendation; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

Custody: whoever takes XRP off the exchange holds the key themselves

The finding turns on coins leaving an exchange. For private holders in Germany the practical question behind it is this: should XRP sit on the exchange or not. If the holding stays there, the key belongs to the exchange, and the holder has a claim against it. Withdraw it, and responsibility for access rests with the holder alone. With the XRP Ledger that comes with two particulars: every activated address must permanently hold a base reserve of 1 XRP that cannot be paid out, and deposits to pooled addresses need the destination tag, otherwise the transfer arrives without an allocation. If you want to compare the devices for that, the models are in our overview of the hardware wallet comparison.

On the buying route, since the EU's MiCA regulation applies in full, providers need an authorisation for retail business in the EU. For holders that means something concrete: a provider's authorisation can be checked, and it decides which duties it carries on custody and complaints. An authorisation does not protect against price losses; it sets the frame.

The holding period on withdrawal from the exchange: what the tax office wants to see

In Germany, gains from the sale of crypto assets fall under private disposals pursuant to section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months pass between purchase and sale, the gain stays tax free. Within that period it is taxable as soon as the total of all private disposal gains in a year reaches the 1,000 euro threshold. Once that threshold is exceeded, the entire amount is taxable and not merely the part above it.

Withdrawing from the exchange to your own address is not itself a sale and triggers no tax. It does change the evidence position. As long as the holding sits with the exchange, the exchange keeps the history and as a rule issues a statement. After the withdrawal, allocating purchase date and purchase price to the transferred part of the holding falls to the holder, and that allocation later decides whether the twelve-month period has run for a given part of the holding. Practically: the purchase receipt, the amount, the date and the destination address belong in a list of your own before the withdrawal, not in next year's tax return. Tools that carry this allocation along are in our comparison of crypto tax tools.

On the holding period itself a political debate is running in Germany, in which a shortening or an abolition has also been discussed. We track the current state of the reform plans on our page on the status of the crypto holding period reform. For the current year the twelve-month period applies unchanged.

XRP at $1.39: without fresh inflows $1.50 stays out of reach

The finding of the day is a number about a state, not about a direction: $49.7 million in whale outflows on the 90-day average, the lowest value in five years. It does not explain the price gain of 5.6 percent. Three points remain testable:

1. Check the buying route. The EU authorisation of the provider you use can be inspected; which exchanges hold one is shown in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Note the levels. Below, $1.32; above, $1.40 and then $1.50. Above $1.40 the price has no support without fresh fund inflows.
3. Record the holding period per entry. Before every withdrawal from the exchange, the date, the amount and the purchase price belong in a list of your own, because the twelve-month period applies per part of the holding.

(As of October 21, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)