According to new information from XRPWallets, Coinbase's XRP fell almost 90% in just three months. Earlier in the summer, the major US crypto exchange held around XRP 970 million with 52 cold wallets. Ten of these held 26.8 million coins each, with the remaining 16.8 million combined. This has made Coinbase one of the biggest visible owners of XRP in the market.
But then something was switched, and by mid-September, only six cold wallets each with around 16.5 million XRP were still active, with a total of nearly 99 million, and levels not seen in a few years.
This was a drop of 89.79% from June, which happened against the background of a consistent transfer between Coinbase and unknown wallets throughout the summer.
🚨🚨🚨16,508,780 #XRP (51,425,879 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #coinbasehttps://t.co/kcz7kajthc
– Whale Alert (@Whale_Alert) September 13, 2025
One of them happened this weekend, including 16.5 million XRP worth $51.4 million that moved to Coinbase, causing further debate among traders.
Where does XRP go?
Some may think that large companies and institutions like BlackRock may be buying XRP through Coinbase for their customers, but certainly nothing is known.
On-chain data only shows the balances that leave the exchange, not where the coins that may be used after or later, go.
Of all this, XRP is the third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, with a market value of around $183 billion.
This makes it even more surprising that Coinbase's role in XRP storage will be much smaller, as it raises doubts about whether coins have been moved to new custody solutions, private vaults, or alternative trading routes.
