Coinbase's XRP reserves have undergone a dramatic reduction, with on-chain analytics from @XRPwallets revealing that the exchange now holds only 132 million XRP across eight cold wallets—each containing 16.5 million tokens. This represents an 82% decline from the previous holding of approximately 750 million XRP just months ago.
The sharp decrease coincides with Coinbase's strategic partnership with BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. As part of this collaboration, Coinbase provides institutional clients of BlackRock's Aladdin platform with direct access to cryptocurrency. While Aladdin initially offered only Bitcoin in August, it has likely expanded its offerings to include other digital assets such as XRP.
This significant drawdown suggests a strategic reallocation rather than a mere sell-off, potentially indicating growing institutional demand facilitated through BlackRock's network. The exact reasons remain unspecified, but the timing and scale point to institutional distribution channels being activated.
