Something interesting is happening with XRP right now. The big money is buying. But the price keeps sliding anyway.
XRP sits at $1.40 as of late March 2026, down 9.17% from its March 16 high of $1.55 on Binance. Mid-tier whale wallets have added roughly 500 million XRP since early March. Yet that buying hasn’t stopped the bleeding. So what’s actually going on here?
Let’s break it down.
XRP’s Unrealized Loss Problem Runs Deep
Most XRP holders are currently sitting on losses. That’s not speculation — it’s what the Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) data from Glassnode shows.
The NUPL metric tracks whether the average holder is in profit or the red across the entire network. Back in late January, when XRP traded above $2, NUPL peaked near 0.22. That’s solidly profitable territory. Then February hit hard. The metric crashed to -0.19 on February 5 before finding its footing.
From mid-February through most of March, NUPL stabilized between -0.03 and -0.08. A brief flicker of hope appeared around March 16, when NUPL climbed back to roughly 0.065 as price touched $1.55. But that recovery didn’t stick.
Today, NUPL sits near -0.03. That means the majority of XRP holders remain underwater at current prices. For the metric to flip positive, XRP would need a sustained move above $1.51. That’s not impossible — but it requires real buying conviction, not just whale accumulation.
Mid-Tier Whales Have Been Quietly Stacking
Here’s where it gets interesting. Despite the gloomy unrealized loss picture, a specific group of wallets has been buying steadily throughout this downturn.
Wallets holding between 10 million and 100 million XRP — what analysts call mid-tier whales — added roughly 500 million XRP since early March. Their combined balances grew from about 10.77 billion XRP to 11.09 billion XRP, according to data from Santiment.
At an average accumulation price of around $0.61, that buying represents close to $305 million in added exposure. And crucially, these wallets haven’t sold meaningfully since the March 16 peak. They’re holding.
But here’s the catch. Whale buying absorbs selling pressure — it doesn’t eliminate it. Since the March 16 peak, distribution has driven price action more than accumulation. Sellers have been unloading into whale bids, and the price chart reflects that reality.
The Chart Tells a Cautionary Story
XRP broke below the $1.4367 support level, which now flips to resistance. A pink-shaded distribution zone between $1.43 and $1.52 on the daily chart marks exactly where sellers absorbed the March rally. That’s the area buyers need to reclaim to change the short-term narrative.
The measured move projected from the top of that distribution range targets approximately $1.38 to $1.39 — a 9.17% decline. XRP is already trading right at that zone, around $1.40.
So what happens if sellers push further? A daily close below $1.3392 opens the next major support level at $1.2852, roughly 4% lower from current prices. Below that sits $1.2127, the last significant floor before XRP potentially sets new multi-month lows.
On the upside, reclaiming $1.4367 would remove immediate bearish pressure. A push back above $1.5119 would signal something more meaningful — but that requires both sustained whale buying and a broader market catalyst.
Could the Evernorth Deal Change Everything?
One potential wildcard is worth watching closely. A proposed treasury deal involving Evernorth includes a $1 billion structure with XRP contributions from Ripple. If confirmed, that deal could provide genuine fundamental support for a price recovery.
Still, “if confirmed” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Until the deal becomes concrete and markets digest it, the technical picture remains cautious.
The current setup isn’t a collapse scenario — whale accumulation provides a meaningful floor. But it’s also not a clean reversal setup. XRP sits at a crossroads, with sellers still in control short-term and buyers waiting for a catalyst that hasn’t fully materialized yet.
Watching that $1.39 support zone closely makes sense right now. How XRP behaves around this level over the next few sessions will likely tell us a great deal about where the next significant move goes.