Major alt-coin Ripple crashes as co-founder announces 9 billion XRP dump

Although designed as a trustless payment network rather than as a true virtual currency, Ripple has been one of the best known and highest profile alt-coins for the last several years. The system’s native currency, ripples (XRP), have traded as high as $0.06 in recent memory, giving it a surprisingly high market cap for a 100% pre-mined cryptocurrency. But those prices crashed yesterday after Ripple Labs co-founder Jed McCaleb announced on the XRP community forum that he was planning on dumping his entire holdings of roughly 9 billion XRP.

I have given away and donated some of my 9 billion XRP to charities such as MIRI, Literacy Bridge, Give Directly, Mission Bit and others. I plan to start selling all of my remaining XRP beginning in two weeks. Because I have immense respect for the community members and want to be transparent, I’m publicly announcing this before I start. So just fyi…. xrp sales incoming.

Not surprisingly, XRP prices immediately began to nosedive, dropping from $0.006 to just above $0.003 in just a few hours. Given that the entire available amount of XRP on the market is a roughly 8 billion, McCaleb’s firesale will more than double the current supply.

What isn’t clear yet is McCaleb’s reason for the dump, which represents around 9% of the total XRP in existence. Some have speculated that his recent split from Ripple Labs might have been less than friendly, or that his involvement with bitcoin-project backers Pantera Capital might be playing a role. McCaleb is also the original creator of, and a minority shareholder in, shuttered exchange Mt.Gox. He’s also a partner in Sunlot Holding’s rehabilitation plan for Mt.Gox, which appears to be moving closer to becoming a reality. McCaleb also has a still-secret bitcoin startup in the works.