After eight long years of systematic selloffs, American programmer and co-founder of Ripple Labs Jed McCaleb finally emptied the XRP coins in his renowned “tacostand” wallet. But more importantly, it appears the 47-year-old entrepreneur secured a cumulative gain of $3.1 billion from these periodic sales, notwithstanding the current downturn plaguing the crypto markets.
The last transaction by McCaleb involved 1.1 million XRP
McCaleb’s last dumping session contained about 1.1 million XRP coins valued at $394k against the prevailing rate then, per data from the XRP scan. The transaction was carried out at 6:31 AM (UTC) on July 17. The account was set to be deleted shortly after that, having a balance of 46.7 XRP tokens left.
According to Whale Alert, the series of dumps saw a selloff of 5.7 billion XRP, amounting to an estimated $3.1 billion at an average price of $0.55 per token. The persistent selloffs have exerted some pressure on the price of the token, and now that the pressure is finally off, the crypto community ponders on the direction XRP will go from here.
McCaleb, who co-founded Ripple Labs in 2012 alongside Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto, had to depart the firm in 2014 due to issues with the board of directors. He was entitled to a share of 20 billion XRP tokens shared amongst the three founders. McCaleb had been selling off his ‘$9 billion’ holdings periodically due to an agreement that he wouldn’t dump everything at once to avoid a market crash.
McCaleb’s selloffs raised questions in the past
Following reports of large selloffs in February of 2021, McCaleb’s XRP holdings were estimated to run out three months later – in May of 2021 – if he kept up with the dumping pace. However, that wasn’t the case, as there were pauses along the line.
The crypto community raised questions about McCaleb’s persistent selloffs in the past. Late last month, a crypto Twitter influencer dubbed Digital Asset Investor (@digitalassetbuy) pondered why the SEC appears to have looked away while McCaleb sells off his holdings despite its case with Ripple Labs.
The handle further noted that the community should be focused on who McCaleb has been selling his tokens to. Nonetheless, that wouldn’t matter much now as the stash has completely dried up; and with a gain of $3.1 billion following the last transaction, McCaleb has now cut off the last of what affiliated him with Ripple Labs.
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