Summary

The richest user-held Ripple address holds over 730,000,000 XRP

The wallet holds approximately 1.65% of the current circulating XRP

After our recent, What is the Richest Bitcoin Address report, we analyzed the richest XRP address.

After analyzing and combing through addresses on the Ripple rich list our research concluded that XRP address: “rQJteJeKc3v7Vf3JZyYMaS9KMSAhmRzxDD” is the real richest Ripple wallet with over 730,000,000 XRP, worth over $137,000,000 at current market value.

Finding the Address

Conditions For Our Research:

Exclude all known exchange addresses

Ripple addresses not activated by Ripple.com or an exchange

Upon first look, we discovered that the majority of the addresses on the rich list were exchange addresses or owned by Ripple.com.

After looking through transaction history and filtering through the microtransactions we narrowed our search to address “rQJteJeKc3v7Vf3JZyYMaS9KMSAhmRzxDD”.

Analyzing the Address

Then we took a look at the transaction history.

The first transaction was in late 2017, at the height of the XRP bull run

The address saw massive inputs from crypto exchanges Kraken and Bitstamp, multiple exchanges prove that this was is not an exchange hot/cold wallet

The latest inputs come from individual addresses, possibly from OTC (over the counter) transactions

It is clear that this address has been accumulating XRP since 2017.

Furthermore, the Ripple network is growing massively amid COVID-19. For example, RippleNet, Ripple’s on-demand-liquidity platform just saw its highest liquidity ever. In addition, Ripple’s been gaining traction among institutional investors, another good sign.

XRP Distribution

However, XRP’s distribution is controversial within the crypto community. According to the rich list, over 35B XRP, over 70% of the current circulating supply, belongs in the hands of the top 100 accounts. The distribution raises red flags as the majority of cryptocurrencies have far better currency distribution.

For example, the top 100 Bitcoin addresses only hold 17% of the circulating supply.

That being said, analyzing XRP’s distribution is incredibly nuanced due to a myriad of factors. The majority of the top 100 XRP addresses belong to cryptocurrency exchanges and thus irrelevant to distribution. Exchange weightage is not a significant factor in Bitcoin distribution because Bitcoin is an established cryptocurrency. Thus, only a small percentage of total Bitcoin live on exchanges. Ripple, on the other hand, presents a far more interesting case. Ripple wallets require a 20 XRP activation fee. Many exchanges do not charge a 20 XRP fee, and thus many users opt to store XRP on exchanges rather than personal wallets. As a result, exchanges hold massive amounts of XRP, inflating the XRP distribution.

Furthermore, Ripple is widely popular among institutional investors, selling a combined amount of $232M to institutions directly, according to Ripple quarterly insights. This influx in institutions holders can also account for the top 100 addresses holding a significant amount of XRP.

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