Ripple Labs Co-Founder Empty XRP Wallet After Eight Years of Continuous Selloff

Ripple Labs co-founder Jed McCaleb finally ended his eight-year Ripple (XRP) sell-off with just 46.7 XRP left in his famous “~tacostand” wallet.

The former Ripple founder performed his last XRP transfer of 1.1 million XRP, worth $394,742.18, at 6:31 a.m. on Sunday, according to data from blockchain explorer XRP Scan.

Hours later, the account listed an "account deletion" transaction, meaning the account would no longer exist on XRP's ledger.

The deal marks the end of a 9 billion XRP dump that McCaleb initiated after he left Ripple Labs in 2014 to co-found competing payments protocol Stellar.

McCaleb’s release over the past eight years represents approximately 18.6% of XRP’s total circulating supply, which is seen as good news by the crypto community.

XRP supporters XRP whales announced to their 57,500 followers on Twitter that with the eventual dump, people could finally own more XRP than McCaleb.

On Friday, a satirical article in the Crypto Town Crier led some to believe that McCaleb decided to keep his last 5 million XRP “in case of a pump.”

“McCaleb, who has sold billions of XRP since leaving Ripple in 2014, said he woke up Thursday night in a cold sweat and realized he couldn’t give up his last holding,” wrote the author behind the satirical article.

Crypto Town Crier is a satirical news site with the slogan "Truth is more important than accuracy".

The price of XRP is currently at 0.3564, having gained 0.82% in the last 24 hours. XRP is down nearly 90 percent from its January 2018 all-time high of $3.40.

Since late 2020, Ripple Labs has been embroiled in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused Ripple and its executives of offering XRP to investors as an unlicensed security.

The SEC took a hit last week in its case against Ripple after a U.S. judge ruled that it must produce internal documents related to the “Hinman speech,” which could be key evidence in support of Ripple’s defense.

If Ripple successfully argues that XRP is not a security, some believe the ruling could set a precedent for other issuers of similar crypto tokens while boosting XRP prices.