- Jed McCaleb is expected to part with a whopping 286 million XRP tokens this week
- The former CTO has been increasing his rate of sale, diluting the XRP supply quicker than ever
- McCaleb’s increase in sales could be related to the SEC lawsuit against Ripple
Ripple co-founder and former CTO Jed McCaleb is set to sell a whopping 286 million XRP tokens this week, meaning that the 2.9 billion tokens he has left could be gone by May. The uptick in volume, pointed out by XRP Arcade’s Leonidas Hadjiloizou, will see the Stellar founder raking in $166 million at today’s prices while simultaneously diluting the XRP circulating supply. The increase in sell volume could be linked to the impending court case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with McCaleb potentially getting out while the price is high.
McCaleb Continually Diluting XRP Supply
McCaleb received 9 billion XRP tokens as part of his compensation plan for his role as CTO for Ripple, who retained 80% of the 100 billion tokens they minted in 2013. Ripple has to continually unlock and sell batches of XRP tokens in order to keep the lights on, and each time it does, McCaleb gets a cut as part of his deal.
Hadjiloizou, who has been critical of Ripple’s deal with McCaleb in the past, pointed out yesterday that the rate at which McCaleb is selling his XRP tokens is increasing and that he could single-handedly add almost 3 billion to the XRP circulating supply within three months:
Jed will be selling 38,345,406.53 XRP per day this week. This amounts to roughly 268M XRP or $166M at current prices in 1 week.
At this rate, his 2.896B XRP would run out by May.
At half that rate (19M per day) he would run out by mid-July.
At 10M per day by the end of the year. pic.twitter.com/ZxdmlXDvMR— Leonidas Hadjiloizou (@LeoHadjiloizou) February 14, 2021
Hadjiloizou noted in December that McCaleb’s selling rate was increasing, stating that on December 6, McCaleb unloaded 29.5 million XRP after selling less than 10 million XRP the week before. Clearly McCaleb’s rate of sale is increasing, with Hadjiloizou’s data reflecting a 29% increase in sell volume this year.
Ripple-SEC Lawsuit May Have Prompted Selling
Why is McCaleb suddenly selling more of his XRP? The reasons could be multifaceted, but it is likely not a coincidence that he is doing so in advance of the SEC case against Ripple. The XRP token is also holding up well thanks to the currency bull market, and McCaleb may be wanting to cash in on that while he can before the market reverses.
