Everyone’s favorite crypto Twitter account – Whale Alert – has Tweeted multiple times over the last few days letting the world know that a whale has moved just shy of $1 billion in XRP between accounts. The whale in question moved a total of $989,999,892 in just four hours over a series of five transactions. The wallet this insane amount of Ripple was sent to now holds more than 2.6 billion XRP, however the owner of the wallet remains unknown. This colossal transfer only cost 0.000012 XRP – something Brad Garlinghouse and his PR team will definitely talk about publicly for the years to come.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 999,999,959 #XRP (348,507,596 USD) transferred from Unknown wallet to Unknown wallet
Tx: https://t.co/Ev8EewPGcu
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) November 27, 2018
Ripple Selling OTC
Due to the fact that Ripple still holds the vast majority of all XRP, this could simply be Ripple moving XRP in preparation to sell a huge chunk OTC to financial institutions that are joining for the next protocol upgrade. Ripple’s xRapid platform is currently being used by a number of banks around the world. In order to use it, these banks need XRP so they buy it in bulk chunks. This transaction could then be in preparation for the next bank buy up of XRP so they can continue to use the xRapid platform.
Covering up Legal Issues
It’s no secret that Ripple is in a bit of legal trouble. It has a number of pending lawsuits against it for being a security that was mis-sold rather than a cryptocurrency. In what looks very much like an effort to throw the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) off its trail, Ripple has been caught changing its website content to wording that is more legally accurate of a cryptocurrency. These changes were caught thanks to the Way Back Machine, and highlight the fact that Ripple is definitely trying to hide its true form.
Ripple Not Ready for Institutions
In a debate for Fortune Magazine, Taavet Hinrikus – TransferWise co-founder and chairman – said that XRP isn’t yet ready for institutional use. Hinrikus explained that TransferWise can currently send a transaction from Australia to any UK bank in under 15 seconds for a fee of only 1%. Currently there are too many restrictions in place with blockchain technology – such as a recipient bank needs to use the same blockchain platform in order to receive funds – but he didn’t rule out its future in the banking industry.
XRP might be used by a number of banks around the world, but not enough are using it currently to make it worthwhile for a number of investors. Big moves of XRP like this are going to become more commonplace as more banks join the xRapid network, but they can often spook holders into thinking something nefarious is going in in the network – such as Garlinghouse dumping his XRP.
