Ripple (XRP) investors have been known to be far more optimistic than the rest for a long time. However, the whales are beginning to identity such waves of interest in the cryptocurrency and they might be playing a long game to trap such overly optimistic investors. On surface, everything looks good as far as XRP/USD or XRP/BTC is concerned. Those charts tell us what the average investor is thinking but the XRPUSDLongs chart tells us what the average trader is thinking. Ripple (XRP) investors are mostly hodlers who do not mind buying the dip and accumulating all they can. Over the months, this pattern has become more obvious to the whales. If Ripple (XRP) investors are not careful, they might fall prey for mischievous schemes and designs of such greedy whales.

This is not a theory. We have seen this happen in the past when the price of XRP/USD was manipulated in 2018 around the Swell Conference. Retail interest in Ripple (XRP) was one of the highest at that point and the price was trading just above $0.18. Everybody everywhere was talking about Ripple (XRP) being the next big thing. During the conference, Ben Bernanke and Tim Berners Lee were the keynote speakers. The whole event was a big success but the price of Ripple (XRP) kept on tanking before, during and even after the conference. Most XRP/USD investors had no idea as to why the price would tank before, during and after such a successful event. If this had been any other coin, we would have said people were just buying the rumor and selling the news.

Ripple (XRP) on the other hand is mostly supported by the average investors. Coinbase has not listed Ripple (XRP) on its platform to this day but it still went on to become the second largest coin by market cap. This goes on to show the level of interest in XRP/USD. However, where all such optimism comes together, bad players who want to profit off this exuberance also enter the scene. This is what happened during the second last Swell Conference and this will most likely happen again. Ripple (XRP) has a very large supply and not all investors have to buy the coins on exchanges. This means that they can buy without affecting the price of Ripple (XRP) but they can sell on exchanges to manipulate the price to their advantage.

The bear flag on the first chart for XRPUSDLongs shows us what is possible and the price action on the XRPUSDShorts chart shows us what is happening right now. The number of shorts is already down significantly and is about to complete its correction. This means that Ripple (XRP) will be ready for a new wave of sell pressure in the months ahead. Whether or not it can withstand that pressure is another debate but these are the risk factors that investors in XRP/USD need to be wary of in order to better protect themselves against the moves of bad players in the market.