Jed McCaleb, co-founder and former chief technology officer of Ripple, liquidated 28.6 million XRP. This drew the attention of researcher Leonidas Hadjiloizou.
Jed’s Tacostand had paused XRP sales ever since the SEC lawsuit was announced. After 25 days of no sales, 28.6 million XRP was sold today. pic.twitter.com/XTMgmvDFZF
— Leonidas Hadjiloizou (@LeoHadjiloizou) January 18, 2021
According to him, McCaleb paused selling tokens after December 23, 2020, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Ripple of selling $1.3 billion in unregistered securities.
On January 18, the former Ripple CTO sold the tokens. According to CoinGecko, XRP’s price at that time was around $0.28. The deal brought McCaleb roughly $8 million.
Hadjiloizou suggested that the Ripple co-founder consulted with lawyers, but the real reason he resumed selling is unknown.
Jed had paused his sales in the past, to allow a charity he had donated XRP to, to sell. This time, however, he paused his sales right after the lawsuit. There is no way to know why he resumed. He could have waited for some advice from his lawyers or for a million other reasons.
— Leonidas Hadjiloizou (@LeoHadjiloizou) January 18, 2021
Since 2014, the ex-Ripple employee’s accounts held more than 9 billion XRP. Under the agreement with the company, McCaleb receives regular token tranches. Earlier, he had ruled out any potential price pressure.
According to Whale Alert, from 2014 to 2019 the co-founder sold 1.05 billion XRP. In 2020 he liquidated 375 million XRP.
Preliminary hearings on the SEC’s case against Ripple were scheduled for February 22, 2021.
On January 5, Tetragon Financial Group filed another lawsuit against Ripple.
CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the regulator’s claims a terrible precedent for the crypto industry and organizations tied to digital assets. He said the company will not abandon efforts to resolve disagreements with the agency.
In the wake of the SEC’s suit, major platforms pulled support for XRP. Among them Coinbase and OKCoin, Galaxy Digital, Bitstamp, B2C2, eToro, and Kraken.
The head of the regulated Bakkt platform Gavin Michael ruled out adding XRP to new products, and Grayscale Investments announced the liquidation of a token-based investment trust.
The crypto platform Gatehub stated support for XRP until a final decision on the SEC’s lawsuit is reached.
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