dump

Jed McCaleb empties XRP wallet after eight-year selloff

XRP Scan shows the former Ripple founder’s “Tacostand” wallet has only $16 worth of XRP left at the time of writing.

Former Ripple Labs founder Jed McCaleb has finally ended the eight-year dump of his Ripple (XRP) holdings, leaving only 46.7 XRP left sitting in his famed “~tacostand” wallet. 

According to blockchain explorer XRP Scan, the former Ripple founder executed his last outgoing XRP transfer of 1.1 million XRP, worth $394,742.18, at 6:31 am UTC on Sunday.

Hours later, the account listed an “ACCOUNT DELETE” transaction, meaning the account will no longer exist on XRP’s ledger.

The transaction marks the end of a 9 billion XRP sell-off initiated by McCaleb after leaving Ripple Labs to co-found rival payment protocol Stellar in 2014.

The amount McCaleb has released over the last eight years represents around 18.6% of the total circulating supply of XRP and has been taken as welcome news by the crypto community.

XRP proponent XRP whale proclaimed to their 57,500 followers on Twitter that with the final sell-off, one can finally own more XRP than McCaleb.

On Friday, a satirical article from The Crypto Town Crier led some to believe that McCaleb decided to hold onto his last five million XRP “just in case it moons.”

“McCaleb, who has sold multiple billions of XRP since leaving Ripple in 2014, said he woke up in a cold sweat Thursday night and realized he just couldn’t let the last of his holdings go,” wrote the authors behind the satire piece.

The Crypto Town Crier is a satirical news site with the tagline “Where truth matters more than accuracy.”

Related: Price analysis 7/15: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, SOL, DOGE, DOT, SHIB, AVAX

The price of XRP is currently sitting at 0.3564, up 0.82% over the last 24 hours. The asset is down almost 90% from its January 2018 all-time high of $3.40. 

Ripple Labs has been embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since late 2020, with the latter alleging Ripple and its executives had offered XRP as unlicensed security to investors.

Last week, the SEC suffered a blow in its case against Ripple after a U.S. judge ruled that the SEC must produce internal documents relating to the “Hinman speech,” which could be a pivotal piece of evidence in support of Ripple’s defense.

Should Ripple be successful in arguing that XRP is not a security, some believe this ruling could set a precedent for other similar crypto token issuers while boosting XRP prices.

Celsius moved $529M worth of wBTC to FTX exchange: Should we be worried?

The crypto community is concerned that the transfer could lead to the dumping of more than $500 million Bitcoin into the market.

Embattled lending platform Celsius has transferred nearly 25,000 Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), worth $528.9 million, to crypto exchange FTX, prompting concerns from some in the community about whether a dump may soon follow. 

The huge transfer to the exchange comes after the lending platform paid off its remaining $41.2 million of debt to Maker protocol, freeing up its loan’s entire wBTC collateral.

However, the community is unsure what to make of the transfer, with some fearing that a dump of the wBTC on the exchange could soon follow, pushing Bitcoin (BTC) prices down.

Others have been more hopeful that the move may be in preparation for Celsius to swap their Wrapped Bitcoin for BTC, which may be a good sign for depositors who’ve been hoping for Bitcoin withdrawals to eventually reopen on the Celsius platform. Bitcoin is up 8% in the past 24 hours to trade above $22,100, suggesting market participants are taking the news in their stride.

The 25,000 wBTC sent to FTX follows the news earlier today that 150,000 BTC may be potentially released into the market as Mt. Gox creditors get their BTC back after an eight-year wait.

So far, both Celsius and CEO Alex Mashinsky have remained radio silent about any movement of funds.

Crypto lawyer Joni Pirovich, principal of blockchain and digital assets, told Cointelegraph on Thursday that Celsius’ repayment of its loan position with Maker will ultimately assist its customers.

Related: Bombshell allegations of fraud as KeyFi takes Celsius to court

“Maker protocol relies on overcollateralized loan positions, so the loan repayment of $41 million worth of DAI released 21,962 wBTC of capital which is now available to meet customer withdrawal requests.”

Pirovich added that even if Celsius ends up filing for bankruptcy, repaying the loan position and withdrawing collateral could improve the position of customers:

“The question is what will Celsius do with the withdrawn collateral? Keep it in reserve for customers or risk it to trade and on-lend.”