Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple Labs, will have sold all of his nine billion XRP stash by the weekend, marking the end of a billion-dollar dumping spree that was the subject of much controversy when it began in 2014.
According to crypto researcher Leonidas Hadjiloizou, it took the former Ripple Labs chief technology officer “eight years, one month and 25 days since announcing his sales to finally get rid of the nine billion XRP tokens.”
Between now and Friday, McCaleb’s wallet, named “tacostand”, will be selling an average 4.22 million XRP per day, and then another 1.08 million tokens on Saturday, until it hits zero, he said. As of July 10, the wallet had a balance of 22.16 million XRP, worth over $7.3 million.
The token has plunged more than 60% year-to-date, and about 91% from its all-time high of $3.40 on Jan 7 2018, according to CoinGecko.
McCaleb: founder who became a billionaire
Jed McCaleb founded Ripple Labs in 2012, together with current CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, each receiving a share of 20 billion XRP tokens. In 2014, he left to start Stellar Development after a reported fallout with his fellow co-founders.
The executives agreed to a lock-up of McCaleb’s nine billion XRP holdings, concerned that an immediate sell would crash the token’s price. The agreement prevented McCaleb, who also founded defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox, from selling more than $10,000 worth of XRP per week.
That was later increased to $20,000 per week for the three years to 2017. In later years, the plan was changed to apply to the total number of XRP sold, putting a yearly limit of 1 billion tokens during the period 2018-19, and then 2 billion per annum in the years after.
According to a 2020 report from blockchain analytics tracker Whale Alert, Jed McCaleb sold 1.2 billion XRP at an average price of $0.34 per coin that year, earning him over $411 million. Between 2014 and 2019, McCaleb sold around 1 billion XRP tokens, worth $135 million.
Whale Alert estimated the total value of his holdings and sales at the time to be $1.2 billion, making McCaleb one of the richest people in crypto. But the estimate was based on the then prevailing price of $0.20 per XRP, which means it would likely be much higher at current values.
McCaleb sold the bulk of his XRP between Jan and Aug 2021, pausing for four months until year-end to allow a charity to which he made a donation to sell. He resumed the sales in Jan, and has sold around 678 million XRP so far this year, as per data from Jed Balance, a website that tracks his holdings.
McCaleb accused of suppressing XRP price
Some people have accused McCaleb of suppressing the XRP price through his long-running sales. Leonidas Hadjiloizou, the crypto researcher, is not convinced.
“I have been looking at Jed’s sales for quite some time now. Never have I found any correlation to price,” he tweeted.
One user replying to Hadjiloizou, said:
“This has been a huge shadow looming over XRP and its potential all this time, and the pressure has always been in one direction, down. But the broader distribution is very good for the future of this project, and it will appreciate in value once this and the legal case is over.”
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