After XRPScan completed the identification of a batch of Coinbase-related addresses, Coinbase's associated balance on the XRP holding leaderboard rose significantly, briefly sparking market speculation about "large-scale accumulation." However, this change was not due to new on-chain inflows or institutional buying, but rather a statistical adjustment resulting from updated address labels.
146 addresses have been reclassified
According to XRPScan, this update identified 146 previously unmarked Coinbase wallets. With these addresses now attributed to Coinbase, the XRP balances previously categorized as "unknown addresses" have been reclassified under Coinbase's total.
After the automatic update, the market briefly saw a roughly 5.57 billion XRP increase in Coinbase-associated balances, a surge of nearly 4,870%. However, at the same time, balances in unrecognized addresses dropped almost simultaneously, suggesting this was more likely a reclassification rather than a new on-chain transfer.
After the update, Coinbase-related addresses collectively hold approximately 5.68 billion XRP across 152 accounts, rising to third place among identified entities.
Ranking up does not equal self-purchase
The most common misinterpretation of this data change is that "associated balance" does not equal "platform's own assets." The wealth ranking reflects balances on identified addresses, indicating the scale of assets controlled or custodied by those addresses, but it does not directly prove the ultimate economic ownership of those assets.
XRPScan also clearly indicates that large exchange addresses typically hold user funds in centralized custody. Therefore, Coinbase’s rise in this ranking should be understood as further recognition of its XRP custody volume, rather than Coinbase holding 5.68 billion XRP itself.
This distinction is especially important when interpreting on-chain data. If one only looks at changes in address balances, the market may easily misinterpret it as institutional buying, exchange accumulation, or large capital inflows.
The cbXRP reserve constitutes only a portion of it.
For comparison, Coinbase’s publicly disclosed cbXRP reserves currently stand at approximately 123.96 million XRP, corresponding to nearly an equivalent amount of wrapped assets on the Base chain. This figure represents only a small portion of its total associated wallet balances, indicating that assets within Coinbase-related addresses serve different actual purposes.
While completing the instructions on XRPScan, the price of XRP continued to rise. According to Coinbase data, XRP was trading at approximately $1.43, up about 2.7% over the past 24 hours and more than 7% over the past seven days.
This means that although the "massive inflow" signal was later found to be due to a change in statistical methodology, the market price did not immediately retrace its gains.