Whale Alert Discovers a Billion-Worth XRP Tokens Transferred by Ripple Co-Founder

Whale Alert, a blockchain tracking and analytics provider, reported that they had been tracking Jed McCaleb’s XRP transactions. According to the post published on 6th February, the Ripple Founder had made transactions worth 1.05 billion XRP tokens between since 2014, with his latest January 2020 sale valued at 19 million XRP.

Whale Alert estimates that Jed still has assets worth 4.7 billion XRP, which is around 5% of the entire XRP supply at the moment.

8 Billion XRP Tokens Tracked from 90,000 Transactions

Whale Alert reported that they had been tracking McCaleb’s transactions for quite some time. In September last year, they published their findings on a 100,000,000 XRP tokens from Ripple to Jed. The assets were part of his compensation as Ripple’s founder. McCaleb and Ripple reached a settlement agreement that specified how much of the assets he could sell.

In 2011, Jed announced that he would be selling some of his XRP tokens. He claimed that he received about 9 billion XRP tokens from Ripple’s ledger. He further stated that he had donated some of the tokens to various charities.

Whale Alert analyzed over 90,000 transactions and discovered about 8 billion worth of XRP transactions from McCaleb’s wallet to Ripple, his accounts and a separate settlement account. From the investigations, Whale Alert was able to trace the sale of 1.05 billion XRP for the period 2014-2019. This amount totals to about $135 million.

Does McCaleb Influence XRP’s Price?

Given that the former Ripple CTO holds 5% of the total XRP tokens, the question on whether or not he affects the price of XRP arises. Whale Alert could not clarify this with certainty. However, it seems that McCaleb’s trades are insignificant compared to the daily trading volume.

By analyzing XRP sales from Bitstamp, the blockchain monitor determined that XRP’s net change is lower as compared to the volume of exchanges from comparable traders. The issue of concern, therefore, is how much McCaleb’s trades influence XRP’s net amount in the blockchain.

It is worth mentioning that the settlement agreement between Jed and Ripple limits his XRP trades. The contract will probably expire sometime this year, and McCaleb will likely increase the rates at which he sells his XRP tokens. In 2014, when he was announcing the sale of his XRP tokens, McCaleb’s assets were worth $45 million. Today, his 4.7 billion XRP is estimated to be worth around S1 billion.

Panic Among XRP Holders

As was expected, the news caused a stir on Twitter among XRP holders. One user pointed out that a bear market was on the way in 2021, following the expiration of McCaleb’s settlement agreement. Another user commented that it was all a part of a scam to promote Ripple’s XRP. He further claimed that Ripple was using the pump and dump method to fund their IPOs.

Speaking to Telegraph, Whale Alert clarified that they didn’t want to cause any alarm. However, it was better that they now had a clear picture. Whale Alert aims to provide transparency by analyzing and monitoring blockchains and reporting their findings.

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