XRP price pumps and dumps amid mysterious $51M whale transfers — what’s next?

XRP price saw a major spike on Aug. 26, hinting at a possible effect from some big traders.

Large XRP transfers, Ripple Swell Global event

Notably, XRP’s price jumped 6% to $0.37, a two-week high, during the early London hours. The token’s upside move occurred hours after its network processed three massive transfers worth $51 million involving crypto exchanges Bitso and FTX, as highlighted by Whale Alert.

XRP’s gains also came as a part of a broader upside move that started on Aug. 25, a day after Ripple announced its flagship event, “Ripple Swell Global,” to be held in London in November 2022. The market has seen similar reactions around the Swell event in the past.

Bearish reversal setup in play

XRP’s intraday spike left behind a “Graveyard Doji,” a bearish reversal candlestick with open, close and low prices near each other with a long upper wick. This candlestick suggests that the price rally witnessed at the beginning of the session was overwhelmed by bears by the end of it.

XRP now trades nearly 4% below its intraday high, testing a support confluence. The confluence comprises the upper trendline of XRP’s previous “ascending triangle” (at $0.35) and the 50-4H exponential moving average (50-4H EMA; the red wave in the chart above) near $0.343.

From a technical perspective, a break below the support confluence risks re-triggering the ascending triangle setup, with its profit target at around $0.33. In other words, a 7% price decline by September when measured from today’s price.

Related: Ripple CTO lashes back at Vitalik Buterin for his dig at XRP

Conversely, a rebound after testing the support confluence could have XRP eye a recovery rally toward the $0.36-$0.38 range (marked in red in the chart above). This area served as XRP’s consolidation range in recent months.

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