Ripple Moves 506M+ XRP, Raising Concerns of Systemic Selloffs

Ripple has been periodically moving XRP since the start of September, amounting to a whopping 506 million tokens in 19 days, as concerns of systemic selloffs emerge.

Ripple moved the 506 million XRP in 14 transactions using two of its addresses. These transactions were indexed by the prominent whale-tracking resource Whale Alert in a series of tweets.

The transactions began on Sept. 3, shortly after Ripple unlocked 1 billion tokens from escrow for the month. The first movement involved a Ripple-controlled wallet. The address sent 29.7 million XRP ($15 million) to Bitstamp on Sept. 3.

Interestingly, the same Ripple-controlled address that made this first transfer is responsible for 11 more transfers. Whale Alert highlights it as an unknown wallet, but investigations suggest it is affiliated with Ripple.

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Most of the transactions carried out by this wallet each involved an excess of 29 million tokens, suggesting a pattern. In addition, all the transferred tokens were moved to the U.K.-based exchange Bitstamp. Recall that Ripple acquired a stake in Bitstamp in May for an undisclosed amount.

The last two transactions the address carried out saw the movement of 29.6 million XRP ($14.5 million) on Sept. 17 and 30 million XRP ($15.1 million) on Sept. 18. Like all other transactions, these last two transfers were inflows to Bitstamp.

Another Ripple-controlled address carried out the rest of the transactions. This second address moved 175 million XRP tokens in two transactions. 

The first transaction, as reported by The Crypto Basic, saw the transfer of 100 million XRP ($47 million) to another wallet on Sept. 11. In the second transaction, the address transferred 75 million XRP ($37.7 million) to the same recipient wallet.

Notably, the recipient wallet in both transactions is also a Ripple-affiliated wallet. These 175 million sent to this wallet were routed through several addresses to exchanges.

Growing Concerns

All these transactions amount to over 506 million XRP, raising concerns of a possible systemic selloff. Recall that Ripple’s recent acquisition of financial services firm Fortress triggered speculation that the company could be selling off its XRP holdings to fund acquisitions.

However, as of press time, it is not confirmed that Ripple has been selling off these moved XRP tokens. The firm has always habitually moved XRP across several wallets for internal business reasons.

On Aug. 30, Ripple transferred 31 million XRP. In March, the firm moved 120 million XRP in a single transaction. Ripple also transferred 100 million XRP in February and January to several addresses.