Court Documents Show Ripple Chairman’s Sale of Over $453 Million in XRP Contrary to Disclosed Holdings

The past few days have exposed more secrets in the ongoing legal dispute between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the latest development, claims of Ripple founders allegedly dumping their XRP holdings surfaced, sparking reactions and controversies, especially as the SEC’s case against Ripple nears its conclusion.

In a bid to clear the new conception revolving around the cross-border payments platform founders, 24HrsCrypto, a prominent XRP-focused YouTube channel, took to Twitter to clarify the controversies surrounding Ripple executives and their XRP holdings.

Using Chris Larson, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Ripple, as a case study, the official Twitter account of 24HrsCrypto noted that Chris Larson never sold any of his XRP holdings since 2013.

Per the 24HrsCrypto host, Larson’s 2.5 billion XRP tokens have been untouched since 2013; the crypto channel host drove his assertion further by sharing a snapshot with detailed transactions from Larson’s crypto wallet.

The Exposed Document

In another disclosure, an anonymous XRP community member discredited earlier claims of Ripple executives holding on to their XRP coins since 2013.

The yet-to-be-identified community member shared a court document filed by Michael K. Kellogg, a solicitor representing Ripple in the SEC lawsuit, having conveyed 106 exhibits, all in a bid to push Ripple’s motion for summary judgment.

The shared document pinpoints Exhibit 81 and Exhibit 82. Both named Exhibits contain the worth of XRP sold by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larson. Notably, these two implied Exhibits earned listings on Court Listener, a prominent legal-based research platform.

According to information obtained from Exhibit 81, Larson, as of December 2020, when the SEC filed the lawsuit against Ripple, sold over $453.69 million worth of his XRP holdings.

Furthermore, data from Exhibit 81 disclosed that Larson sold XRP valued at $395.2 million using foreign exchanges such as Binance, Bithumb, and Huobi. Bithumb contributed to the sales of the remarkable volume of the XRP tokens.

In addition, Larson noted that an extra $58.47 million worth of XRP got traded on US-based exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, and Poloniex, in 2017. Poloniex facilitated the bulk of the sales, which amounted to $43.3 million.

On the other hand, Exhibit 82 disclosed that Garlinghouse sold off $164.26 million worth of his XRP holdings as of December 2020. Of Garlinghouse’s alleged $164.26 million XRP sales, $155.81 million was traded on foreign exchanges, and the remaining $8.44 million tokens got traded on American exchanges.

Ripple Founders’ XRP Selloff: A Subject Of Claims And Speculation

For context, previous Ripple executives allegedly sold off their XRP holdings. At Ripple’s onset, when the token was still referred to as OpenCoin, the three founders – McCaleb, Larson, and Arthur Britto all received a share of 20 billion XRP.

After leaving Ripple in 2013, McCaleb went on an XRP selling spree, necessitating the need to cushion the risks of a possible market impact by extending the distribution of McCaleb’s XRP sales over the years. In the end, McCaleb succeeded in selling off his last set of XRP possessions in late July 2022.

Surprisingly, McCaleb escaped implications by the SEC in the lawsuit against Ripple despite being a significant member of the token’s initial executives. SEC’s McCaleb’s omission in its case against Ripple made John Deaton call out the regulatory body for its numerous inconsistencies.

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Chinedu Agbakwusi

Chinedu Agbakwusi is a medical student at the prestigious Nnamdi Azikiwe University with sound knowledge of the crypto space. I am here to be a reliable plug for well-researched crypto content ranging from crypto news to market analyses and blockchain inventions.