One of the Largest XRP Holders in Existence Sold Nearly Half a Billion in Crypto in the Last Year

Ripple co-founder and one of the biggest XRP whales in history, Jed McCaleb, is entering 2021 with massive profits from selling the digital asset.

Despite Ripple’s legal battles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Ripple co-founder was able to net $411 million in XRP sales throughout the past calendar year, bringing his total profits from selling XRP to $546 million.

Blockchain tracker Whale Alert reports that McCaleb’s remaining XRP holdings along with the value he’s earned from selling the asset amounts to $1.2 billion, making him one of the wealthiest individuals in crypto.

McCaleb left Ripple in 2013 and went on to launch his own crypto startup, Stellar. Per a legal agreement reached with the remaining members of Ripple’s team, McCaleb is only able to sell off his hefty bag of XRP in increments.

The 2014 agreement stated that McCaleb could only sell off a set amount of XRP each week. After McCaleb was accused of violating that agreement, the settlement was revised in 2016 in a manner which McCaleb viewed favorably.

As of August of 2020, McCaleb was selling an average of 1.74 million XRP per day which at that time amounted to roughly $547,438.

Now that XRP’s value has dropped significantly in response to the news of Ripple’s lawsuit with the SEC, that daily sale of the digital asset would amount to $400,200 for McCaleb.

According to Whale Alert’s research, McCaleb still owns 3.274 billion XRP, which if sold at the rate at which the Ripple co-founder sold his holdings in 2020, could all be back on the open market in less than three years.

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