Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb cashed out an estimated 453 million XRP in the month of May, and still has a total of 617.3 million tokens on his “~tacostand” wallet, according to XRP blockchain data provider XRPSCan.
McCaleb is said to have started working on Ripple back in 2011, and was part of its founding team when the firm launched in 2013. While he left it in 2014 to work on Stellar (XLM), he was awarded 8 billion XRP tokens for his role in developing and founding OpenCoin, which was later rebranded to Ripple.
The entrepreneur receives the funds on a fixed schedule and has made it clear via XRP Talk, a forum for XRP investors and proponents, that he plans on selling the funds he receives, as he has already donated part of the funds to charities such as Give Directly, Literacy Bridge, and others.
Since then, he has been periodically selling XRP. Data shows he has now recently sold over 453 million XRP tokens last month, worth an estimated $433 million, taking into account that each XRP token is currently trading at $0.955.
McCaleb’s large XRP sales continued even after the cryptocurrency ensured a major sell-off over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) lawsuit against Ripple Labs last year. The SEC has alleged Ripple and two of its executives “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.”
The price of XRP has also been influenced by recent concerns surrounding bitcoin’s carbon footprint, as some investors have been turning to more energy-efficient cryptocurrencies. Ripple, the largest holder of XRP, reiterated its intention to be carbon-neutral by 2030 late last month.
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