XRP Coins Flop Like a Fried Fish: Is 2026 the Big One or Just a Ripple?

by

Out there in the crypto desert of 2025, the XRP herds broke camp. By December, the centralized exchange (CEX) pens had shrunk from 4 billion tokens to a skimpy 1.6-1.7 billion. That’s champagne for the optimists: a sip of scarce expectations, but more likely a glass half-empty at dawn.

Analysts, those sagekeepers of the blockchain forest, shrugged like coyotes at dusk. “Exchange ledgers might bare bones,” they mused, “but poetry in the red ledger doesn’t mean gold in the market.”

Desiccated Reserves: A Drought or a Mirage?

Glassnode, that old crocodile of data, counted the XRP huddled in exchange cages-down from 3.76 billion on October 8, 2025, to 1.6 billion by Christmas. Whispers spread like prairie fires: scarcity ahead! A short-term dry spell?

Meanwhile, Ripple, that old buzzard with a calendar, tossed 1 billion XRP from its escrow nest on January 1, 2026. Nature’s way-like dropping acorns from a tree and expecting squirrels to chase you.

But history’s dusty ledgers show no such luck. In 2018, XRP hid in caves like a frightened rabbit and the prices still crawled downward. 2022? Same song, different verse. A reserve slide vanished like a mirage until the sun rose on late 2024.

“Oh, folks are still watchin’ the price, but the real muslin’s in the quiet corners… liquidity’s a beetle in the pocket-smallest and most jumpy creature,” said Web3Niels, that old prophet of pixels and paranoia.

Less XRP on exchanges isn’t a lantern in the dark-it’s a matchstick. Good for a quick glint, not a torch-lit path.

Holes in the Data Net

The supply shock saga hit a snag when folks noticed Glassnode’s eyes were peepers, not binoculars. Tracking ten exchanges, mostly little ones, while bigwigs hoarded 14 billion tokens in 2025’s shadows. “That’s like counting grains of sand in a sandbox and forgetting the Sahara,” chuckles Leonidas, the data scribe with a pen sharper than a crypto ’s edge.

“Glassnode’s counting on ten fingers when the hands are thousands of dolled up swindlers,” Leonidas wrote, sipping his existential coffee burr.

XRP’s liquidity? Slippery as an eel in a rainstorm. Tokens vanish and reappear like shadows at noon. Charts are more mood than math.

“Try buying $10M in XRP and see if the price dances or sleeps,” writes Vet_X0, the market’s sarcastic bard. “Economics isn’t a chessboard-this is checkers played with dice in a hurricane.”

Ripple’s monthly token release? A moth drawn to a flame. A billion XRP unleashed on January 1, 2026, but only 200-300 million fluttered free. The rest clung to the tree like Spanish moss and forgot the sky.

Market folks yawned. They’ve all read the same playbook: “Supply shock” is just the encore of a tired finale.

So there it is. XRP’s reserves sit at a near-skeletal 8-year low-slim, sure-but not the lean hardy beast investors dream of. 2026’s promise hangs like a hammock between two old trees. Whether it swings the big one or rustles dust? Only the market’s ghostly gut knows. 🐟💸📉

Read More

2026-01-02 11:47