Ripple Moves 522 Million XRP As Whale Watchers Track Company's Holdings

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Crypto whale watchers have their binoculars on tight after a massive movement of XRP from Ripple.

The company just sent 522 million XRP worth $132.4 million to an unknown wallet. Traders are speculating that the movement could be an over-the-counter (OTC) sale of XRP to a third-party. However, many of Ripple’s over-the-counter wallets are accounted for and according to Whale Alert, the transaction did not come from one of those wallets.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 522,552,373 #XRP (132,446,488 USD) transferred from Ripple to unknown wallet

Tx: https://t.co/Vi34hGUIS1

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) August 30, 2019

Ripple, which owns more than half of the total supply of XRP, is facing a firestorm about its sale of the digital asset in 2019.

A petition asking Ripple to hold onto its supply of XRP instead of selling to crypto exchanges and institutional participants has reached more than 2,000 signatures. The creator of the petition says he will launch an alternative to the XRP ledger in two months if Ripple doesn’t stop selling.

Ripple has also responded to a report from Bloomberg that questions its sale of XRP, which the company says is done to pay its bills and fund projects that aim to boost the blockchain and XRP ecosystem.

“Programmatic sales of XRP ‘as a percentage of volume and the actual supply inflation rate were lower’ than for Bitcoin or Ether, [Ripple] said in a statement on Friday.

Sales had been tied to trading volumes reported by exchanges, and recognizing that some platforms were misreporting volumes, Ripple has ‘substantially reduced XRP sales,’ a trend that’s expected to continue this quarter, the company said. It also said discrepancies Coin Metrics found come down ‘to a timeline issue.’”