Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb has sold over $175 million worth of XRP since early 2016

Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb has sold over $175 million worth of XRP since early 2016, according to research by The Block. 

In terms of XRP units, McCaleb has offloaded over 819 million XRPs, per the research. McCaleb was awarded 9 billion XRPs for co-founding OpenCoin, which later became Ripple.

Source: XRP blockchain, The Block Research 

Looking at the quarter-wise numbers, McCaleb sold over $26 million worth of XRP in Q1 of 2020, the largest amount in the last five quarters. The highest ever amount of XRP sold by him was in Q4 of 2018, worth over $36 million. 

For comparison, Ripple sold a total of only $1.75 million worth of XRP in Q1 of 2020, as compared to $13.08 million in Q4 of 2019.

Selling since 2016 

McCaleb started selling his XRP holdings in Q2 of 2016 in small lots, according to an agreement he reached with Ripple in 2014. That deal prevented McCaleb from selling his 9 billion XRPs at one go to avoid having a significantly negative impact on the XRP price. 

The 2014 agreement allowed McCaleb to sell XRPs at fixed amounts. In 2016, however, that agreement was revised, and since then McCaleb has been able to sell XRP holdings as a percent of average daily volume.

Accordingly, McCaleb has been offloading his XRP holdings at a steady rate. From the past one week, in particular, McCaleb has been selling 2.1 million XRPs every day. 

Source: XRP blockchain, The Block Research 

'No impact'

Notably, McCaleb believes that his XRP liquidations don’t impact the XRP price. 

“I think the history to date shows there is no impact on the market. I’ve been transparent from the start and the market has known that I would be selling my XRP at a steady rate,” McCaleb, who is now co-founder and chief architect of the Stellar Development Foundation, told The Block.

McCaleb also recently told Cointelegraph that others have sold much more XRP in comparison.

It remains unclear exactly when McCaleb's revised agreement ends and what his remaining XRP holdings are. The Block has reached out to him for further comments and will update this story should we hear back. 

XRP is currently the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which stands at over $9.53 billion. One XRP is currently priced at around $0.21.
Source: CryptoCompare, The Block Research

Update: This story has been updated to include details about McCaleb's revised agreement, and has removed details of his remaining XRP holdings. The Block has reached out to McCaleb for more information and will update this story should we hear back.