A recent transaction between Ripple and Jed McCaleb once again stirred controversy. McCaleb, an early co-founder of the Ripple protocol, chose a different path, abandoning the company and agreeing to regular payouts in XRP.
Based on the agreement, McCaleb may accelerate his selling of XRP in the coming years, as the schedule enters its fifth year. After 2020, he will be capable of selling above 1 billion XRP per year, still a relatively small amount compared to the general trading volume and circulating supply.
McCaleb helped grow the XRP ecosystem initially, but later chose to establish Stellar, an open-source version using a similar protocol. The potential to sell XRP coins has been known for a while, though it is often forgotten.
The most recent tranche of 100 million XRP, worth more than $26 million, triggered the discussion, since it followed a recent unlocking of 1 billion XRP from Ripple’s wallets.
https://twitter.com/whale_alert/status/1170401861217783808
The potential for selling a part of those coins on the market stirred worries that XRP may not command a higher price. XRP is one of the worst-performing assets in 2019, losing more than 60% of its value against Bitcoin (BTC) and down more than 23% in dollar terms.
XRP is currently stagnating around $0.25, as the asset has shown it can spend months stuck in one price range. This is despite the 41% share of Tether (USDT) trading flowing into the coin, to boost volumes to above $1 billion. More than $100 millions’ equivalent flows into XRP each day, based on Coinlib data.
Still, the high number of coins in circulation and the potential for selling are worrying, and XRP prices are seen as bearish.
On a positive note. Crypto.com, which extended into crypto lending, has added XRP as collateral:
https://twitter.com/cryptocom/status/1170972013793464321
Crypto lending is one of the hopeful developments for altcoins to generate income, as active trading is highly risky and altcoins are quickly losing trading volumes.
