Jed McCaleb, one of the co-founders of Ripple, has sold an estimated 160 million worth of XRP so far this month, with about 29 million being dumped in a single day and is on his way to sell over 200 million XRP this week. The move came after the former CTO of Ripple received 266 million XRP.
McCaleb is said to have started working on Ripple back in 2011, and was part of its founding team when the firm launched in 2013. While he left the firm in 2014 to work on Stellar (XLM), he was awarded 8 billion XRP tokens for his role in developing and founding OpenCoin, which was later rebranded to Ripple.
The entrepreneur received the funds on a fixed schedule and has made it clear via XRP Talk, a forum for XRP investors and proponents, that he plans on selling the funds he receives, as he has already donated part of the funds to charities such as Give Directly, Literacy Bridge, and others.
Since then he has been periodically selling XRP. This week, after receiving a total of 266.3 million XRP tokens, he dumped a large portion of the funds on the market in a single day.
As researcher Leonidas Hadjiloizou revealed, the sale came after several consecutive sales of over 9 million XRP, which means McCaleb may sell over 200 million tokens this month. At press time, McCaleb’s “~tacostand” wallet will has around 191 million XRP tokens, which could mean more ales are coming.
McCaleb’s sales come shortly after the price of XRP started enduring a correction, after seeing significant gains earlier this year. The price of the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is believed to be being influenced by the upcoming Spark token airdrop.
XRP token holders, with a few exceptions including Ripple, are set to receive Spark tokens at a 1:1 ratio based on their holdings. Spark tokens will be used for governance on the Flare network through voting mechanisms, and token holders will be able to earn a return on their holdings by committing Spark tokens as collateral to secure the trustless issuance and redemption of FXRP, a protocol built to “safely enable the trustless issuance, usage and redemption, of XRP on Flare.”
Token holders will also be able to earn a return on their holdings by contributing data to the Flare time series oracle. The Flare Network itself integrates the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and does not derive safety from a token.
It will essentially bring Ethereum’s decentralized applications, smart contracts, and decentralized finance into the XRP ecosystem. It’s supported by Ripple’s investment arm RippleX, formerly Xpring. XRP holders can receive tokens either through self-custody or by storing them in exchanges that support the airdrop.
XRP token holders can either receive tokens by having their XRP on exchanges that support the airdrop – including Binance, OKEx, and Coinbase – or through self-custody. Notably, the number of XRP whales has hit a new all-time high ahead of the airdrop.
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