A wallet tied to Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen transferred out hundreds of millions worth of XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) over the last week.
What happened: Around 50 million XRP tokens have been moved from the address since July 17, totaling $155 million at current prices, according to on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant.
The address associated with Larsen still has 2.28 billion XRP left, worth over $7 billion, accounting for 3.80% of XRP’s total market capitalization.
On-chain detective ZachXBT stated that 40 million XRP was moved to exchanges and services, while 10 million XRP was transferred to two new wallets.
It was not immediately clear if the intention was to liquidate the holdings. But CryptoQuant analyst J.A. Maartun said on X that Larsen was "dumping" XRP on the market, treating retail as the "exit liquidity."
Ripple didn't immediately return Benzinga's request for comment.
See Also: Why Crypto Investors Are Receiving Internal Revenue Service Warning Letters
Why It Matters: The outbound transfers caused a sharp pullback in XRP’s price, halting a rally that propelled it past $3.50 for the first time in over seven years. The slide was also linked to intense selling pressure from the Korean crypto exchange Upbit.
Over $46 million was liquidated from the XRP derivatives market in the last 24 hours, according to Coinglass, with long liquidations accounting for $35 million. The coin’s open interest plunged 6% in this period.
Price Action: At the time of writing, XRP was exchanging hands at $3.14, down 2.48% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. The coin lost over 13% of its value over the last week.
Photo Courtesy: alfernec on Shutterstock.com
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