Three huge crypto transfers from Ripple are shedding light on just how much XRP the company may have sold in December.
On December 1st, Ripple unlocked one billion XRP from escrow, a monthly process designed to give the company access to a large pool of the cryptocurrency in order to sell portions to institutions and on exchanges.
Yesterday, whale watchers spotted Ripple returning a total of 900 million back into escrow, indicating the San Franciso startup sold a total of 100 million XRP throughout the month.
- 500,000,000 XRP (93,870,314 USD) locked in escrow at Ripple
- 300,000,000 XRP (56,322,188 USD) locked in escrow at Ripple
- 100,000,000 XRP (18,916,355 USD) locked in escrow at Ripple
The amount of XRP Ripple sells per month created a firestorm in 2019, as the price of the third-largest crypto asset suffered. Ripple, which owns more than half of all XRP in existence, says the amount of XRP it sells does not affect its price.
A number of crypto influencers disagreed, with a petition that urged Ripple to stop its practice garnering 3,875 signatures.
In its third quarter markets report, Ripple blamed bots on Twitter for pushing a narrative of fear, uncertainty and doubt about its XRP sales.
“In Q3, bots have been more active in conversations around XRP, with the number of unique bots rising and engaging in messages related to: FUD #1: Dumping allegations… FUD #2: Price Manipulation.
Bottom line—Ripple cannot control XRP price. XRP is traded on a fully functioning and independent digital asset market, including over 140 exchanges, in which Ripple plays a very limited role.”
Ripple sold $66.24 million in XRP in the third quarter of last year, down from $251.51 million in the previous quarter.
