The recent stagnation in XRP’s spot price may owe less to waning market interest than to a surge in off-exchange trading, according to crypto pundit and Digital Ascension Group managing director Jake Claver. In a 23-post thread published on X, the commentator argued that “dark pools are an invisible force … holding prices stable,” even as institutional demand accelerates.

Claver’s thread—viewed more than 250,000 times within 48 hours—posits that private liquidity venues are absorbing large buy orders that would otherwise inflate the public order book. “So what’s a dark pool, exactly? Picture trying to buy $500 million worth of XRP without tipping off the market,” he wrote. “Dark pools are private spots where huge orders get filled off the main exchanges.”

XRP Price Rigged?

The pundit described the mechanism as a “double-edged sword.” In the near term, he contends, clandestine accumulation “hides bullish momentum and drags prices down,” leaving retail traders to conclude that the asset has lost steam. Over a longer horizon, however, the same process allegedly tightens circulating supply until, he warned, “the dam bursts.”

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“Institutions are quietly draining liquidity from public exchanges,” Claver asserted, adding that hedge funds, family offices and even sovereign entities have begun using dark-pool facilities now offered by major exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken, as well as emerging decentralized alternatives. Because transactions are reported only after execution, he argued, “smart money doesn’t leave a trail.”

Claver suggested that XRP is a prime beneficiary of this covert activity. In his view, pending regulatory clarity and enterprise-level adoption could coincide with dwindling float, leading to an abrupt repricing. “At a certain point, demand on public exchanges will explode past supply — and that’s when the market will panic to reprice itself. Get ready for a potential 2×, 3×, even 5× sprint,” he wrote. Should the hidden bid exhaust available inventory, “the price gaps straight up … charts will look like someone flipped a switch.”

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He underscored the psychological dimension of a prolonged flat tape: “These are the stretches where even the die-hard believers start doubting and walk away. But if you hang tight, you might just catch what comes next.” Comparing dark-pool activity to a “pressure cooker,” Claver added, “They bottle up all that buying pressure now, but eventually, the lid blows off.” Concluding his thread, he urged patience: “Stay locked in. When the dam breaks, you’ll be grateful you bought at 50 cents instead of scrambling to buy at $10.”

Is There Proof?

Market data do indicate muted volatility in XRP, which has traded in a narrow corridor around $2.00 for much of April despite a succession of positive fundamentals and news from Ripple. Whether dark-pool activity is the decisive variable, however, remains unverified; most over-the-counter (OTC) trading is reported only in aggregated form, and no public ledger tracks the size of institutional flows Claver describes.

Claver offered no documentary evidence for the alleged scale of purchasing, and his analysis stops short of quantifying volumes. Nevertheless, his thread reinforces a familiar narrative in crypto markets: that price calm on the surface may belie deep currents of accumulation below. For retail spectators, the question is whether those unseen currents will indeed surface as the “vertical” move Claver envisions—​or remain, like most dark-pool orders, permanently out of sight.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.21.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com