Here’s How Top Korean Exchange Volume Shaped XRP 7-day Move
April 3, 2025
Data reveals heavy retail XRP selloffs and high bot activity on Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit, as broader bearish pressure mounts.
XRP has been struggling to maintain the $2 mark, facing resistance at $2.5 as the broader crypto market remains uncertain. Interestingly, amid this bearishness, data from the South Korean exchange Upbit shows that retail selloffs might be contributing to the downward push.
Upbit’s Role in XRP Market Activity
In a recent analysis, market commentator Dom highlighted trade patterns over a seven-day period, exposing a high level of retail selling and bot-driven activity that might have influenced XRP’s market performance.
Dom stressed that the XRP/KRW pair on Upbit, the largest exchange in South Korea, was the second-largest destination for XRP trading by volume, but market participants have largely ignored its impact.
According to him, the pair recorded over $2.5 billion in trading activity between March 25 and April 1. During this time, traders executed more than 2.4 million transactions. In his analysis of these transactions, Dom found that 61.3% were sell orders, indicating strong selling pressure.
Over the same period, net market sales on the platform reached 160 million XRP, suggesting that sellers dominated the market.
XRP Order Flow Breakdown
Dominant Bot Activity and Retail Selloffs
In addition, the data pointed to substantial bot involvement in the market. For context, more than half (53%) of all trades involved transactions of less than 100 XRP. This highlighted the possibility that these trades involved automated trading strategies.
On the other hand, large trades were relatively scarce. Notably, only 0.6% of all transactions involved more than 10,000 XRP, while a mere 31 trades exceeded 100,000 XRP. These numbers show that most of the market activity consisted of small, frequent trades rather than massive institutional moves.
XRP Trade Size Distribution
Besides the dominant bot activity, Dom’s analysis suggested that retail investors were responsible for much of the selling pressure. Medium-sized transactions, those above 100 XRP but below 10,000 XRP, accounted for a massive portion of the selling volume.
While the total market sell-off reached 160 million XRP, large transactions contributed only 6 million XRP to that figure. This suggests that major holders or “whales” were not actively offloading their holdings, but rather, retail traders were the primary force contributing to the price movement.
XRP Order Flow and Impact on Price Action
Meanwhile, Dom’s order flow analysis showed that the largest single trade of the week was a sell order for 181,000 XRP, which triggered the initial wave of selling pressure. In contrast, the biggest buy order, amounting to 212,000 XRP, occurred near a local price low. This suggests that some traders took advantage of the dip.
This chart shows a great visualization of all buy and sell orders over 100k XRP as bubbles. This is very interesting…
- The sell off was kickstarted with the largest single sell order across the entire week of 181K XRP
- The largest buy order came in at the local low of 212K…
– Dom (@traderview2) April 2, 2025
For order sizes, small transactions, those under 100 XRP, showed a stable volume pattern, confirming that bots maintained a consistent presence in the market. However, medium-sized trades showed aggressive retail selling, while traders executed large transactions with minimal price impact.
Further, a price movement analysis from Dom revealed that trades above 100,000 XRP had a relatively small impact on price shifts, with variations ranging between -0.22% and +0.19%. This indicated that large traders operated with precision, executing trades to minimize slippage. In contrast, sell orders below 10,000 XRP had a stronger influence on price fluctuations, indicating that the buy-side liquidity remained thin throughout the week.
Notably, Dom noted that this was just the beginning of his order flow analysis. He promised to make further studies that will compare XRP trading behavior across different exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance, to determine how each platform influences the asset’s price. At press time, XRP trades for $2.06, up 2.11% this morning.
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