Whale Alert: Ripple Co-Founder Sells 1 Billion XRP, 4.7 Billion Ahead
Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb sold over 1 billion XRP between 2014 and 2019. This conclusion was reached by analysts at the Whale Alert tracking service.
According to them, McCaleb may have another 4.7 billion XRP or almost 5% of the total token issue. When converted at the current exchange rate, this amount exceeds $ 1 billion, while from previous sales he managed to gain $ 135 million, analysts say. Last month, McCaleb sold 19 million XRPs worth $ 5.4 million. Whale Alert expects sales to increase this year, as the agreement restricting them expires.
“At the current pace, it will take him another 20 years to sell everything. However, his actions were limited to an agreement with Ripple, which is likely to expire at some point in 2020, ”the analysts write.
They refer to the addresses belonging to McCaleb, which they managed to identify by analyzing the information in his blog, messages on the forums and the public registry.
Pic. 1. Main Ripple addresses associated with McCaleb’s activity
“After analyzing over 90,000 transactions, we were able to track about 8 billion XRP to Ripple, the current account and his personal account, from which he actively sells,” they add.
According to their observations, for the sale of 1.05 billion XRP, he almost exclusively used the Bitstamp exchange. Initially, McCaleb claimed that he owned 9 billion XRP, but a significant part of his assets was sent to Ripple for unknown reasons, and another 140 million XRP for charity.
Analysts could not establish how exactly McCaleb’s sales affected the XRP price, but noted that, since the co-founder of Ripple only sells cryptocurrency, it increases its total working volume. In addition, Whale Alert was unable to find evidence that the money was invested back in any cryptocurrency assets.
Pic. 2. Total amount sold by McCaleb XRP and average selling price
McCaleb is behind such key projects in the history of the cryptocurrency industry as Mt. Gox, Stellar, and OpenCoin, which was then transformed into Ripple Labs. In 2014, he announced that he was preparing to sell the XRP at his disposal, which at that time cost $ 45 million, after which the price dropped 40% within 24 hours. He then entered into a seven-year agreement with Ripple, under which he could sell 1 billion XRP for the first six years and 2 billion XRP in the seventh year.
According to Whale Alert’s calculations, the seventh year of this agreement is now in effect: “The message was posted in 2014. If we consider this year as the first, it should end somewhere in 2020. " Other commentators are confident that now is the sixth year.
In 2016, Ripple sued McCaleb because he violated the terms of the agreement and limited his ability to sell 1.5% of XRP's daily turnover.
“Regardless of whether you believe in a bright future for blockchains such as Ripple, the economic power and consequences of the existence of whales such as Jed McCaleb cannot be ignored. And he is not alone. Co-founder Arthur Britto also holds billions of XRPs in an escrow wallet that will be unlocked at some point in the future, ”conclude Whale Alert.
Pic. 1. Main Ripple addresses associated with McCaleb’s activity:
Pic. 2. Total amount sold by McCaleb XRP and average selling price
Alexey Shternshis
Pi Capital Union