Coinbase Accused of Manipulating XRP Price, Community Debate Intensifies
Rumours of price manipulation have resurfaced in the XRP community, this time aimed at Coinbase.
The debate was sparked by activist Stern Drew, who used the blockchain analysis platform XRPScan to track changes in the exchange’s holdings.
According to Drew, Coinbase’s XRP balance dropped sharply over the summer — from nearly one billion tokens in June to less than a third of that amount by late August. The number of wallets holding XRP on the platform also shrank, falling from 52 to just 16. He suggested that these changes coincided with moments when XRP repeatedly failed to clear the $1.20 resistance level.
The claim goes further: Drew believes that the exchange moved XRP into multiple wallets and sold during low-liquidity windows, directing some of the flow toward OTC desks with ties to large financial institutions. In his view, such a strategy would make it easier for institutions to accumulate XRP at cheaper prices.
Not everyone is convinced. Analysts caution that on-chain movements alone cannot prove market manipulation. Exchanges frequently adjust wallet structures for liquidity purposes, and similar declines in holdings have been observed across other platforms. Ripple supporter Bill Morgan argued that price swings mirrored broader market trends, recalling that XRP’s behavior was comparable when Coinbase delisted the asset in earlier years.
Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, also dismissed the idea of deliberate suppression. He emphasized that XRP’s value continues to be shaped by external factors such as regulatory uncertainty and wider macroeconomic forces, not by behind-the-scenes maneuvers from a single exchange.
Coinbase has not responded to the allegations, and regulators have not announced any inquiries. For now, the story remains a community-driven debate rather than a confirmed case of wrongdoing. Still, the discussion highlights the enduring distrust some XRP advocates hold toward major U.S. exchanges and the challenges of interpreting blockchain data in an environment where perception often fuels speculation.
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Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
