- Former Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb has halted his XRP sales.
- There is speculation that McCaleb could also face legal action as a result of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple.
The SEC lawsuit against Ripple, which was made public shortly before Christmas, continues to be the dominant topic on the market alongside the furious rise of the Bitcoin price. After numerous exchanges and crypto investment funds have pulled the ripcord and stopped trading with XRP in recent days, Ripple Labs is seemingly also reacting with regard to the agreement with Jed McCaleb.
As Leonidas Hadjiloizou, a respected member of the XRP community, observed, no XRP sales by McCaleb took place for the first time on December 24. Via Twitter, the XRP expert wrote:
Update: Tacostand, Jed’s wallet, did not send any XRP today to be sold. As per the deal between Ripple and Jed, Ripple controls the release of his XRP in a manner consistent with the settlement agreement.
He had. He stopped yesterday. Not sure if it’s him that stopped or Ripple was forced to stop, affecting Jed’s sales as well.
A day later, on December 26, Hadjiloizou tweeted that again no XRP sales were made by the former Ripple co-founder from the known addresses:
No Jed sales today either. Second day in a row. Looking forward to seeing what Ripple will do with the January XRP escrow release in a week.
McCaleb could face consequences due to XRP sales
The apparent reason for the halt in sales, according to Hadjiloizou, could be the SEC lawsuit against Ripple announced on Dec. 21. Thus, the SEC complaint is not only against Ripple Labs, but also the two co-founders Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen. A Twitter user therefore asked the XRP expert if McCaleb could be afraid of being sued as well if he sells XRP.
McCaleb is also a Ripple co-founder and has sold XRP just like Larsen and Garlinghouse. Hadjiloizou replied:
Could be. But don’t forget that Ripple controls the release of his XRP, so this could be Ripple related.
As recently as early December, when the XRP price pumped above $0.60 and trading volume hit new record highs, McCaleb‘s sales broke new records. After the former Ripple co-founder sold 9.9 million XRP per day for a week, McCaleb managed to sell 29.5 million XRP on December 06. In the first week of December, the total thus amounted to well over 200 million XRP.
As CNF reported, Jed McCaleb received 9 billion when he left Ripple Labs. To prevent a dump of the market price of XRP, both parties reached an agreement that was renewed after a breach in February 2016. According to it, McCaleb had to donate 2 billion XRP to a charitable fund (“DAF”) of his choice. The remaining XRP will be held in a custodial account.
Certain rules have been set for this. For example, the former Ripple co-founder is allowed to sell a maximum of 0.5% of the average daily XRP volume daily together with the DAF. This quota increased to 0.75% in the second and third years, and to 1% in the fourth year. After the fourth year of the agreement, McCaleb and the DAF can sell 1.5% of the average daily volume each day.
