Ripple always has been subject to claims of manipulating the price of XRP and its natural growth by selling coins. As the largest holder of the cryptocurrency, Ripple has faced constant criticism of the cryptocurrency amount of XRP it containswith opponents claiming it gives them too much control and influence over the price.
There has been some drama surrounding the altcoin lately, with claims that Ripple has been manipulating the market and systematically dumping its large holdings. This comes in light of a large transfer of 60 million XRP tokens from Ripple to an unknown wallet address.
Ripple accused of dumping XRP and manipulating the market
Whale transaction tracker Whale Alerts recently posted on social media a transfer of 60 million XRP worth $34 million from a Ripple-controlled wallet address to a private address. Looking further, we see that the private recipient wallet currently holds over 138 million XRP worth $75.5 million, while this same address will receive 80 million XRP from Ripple on February 11.
🚨 🚨 60,000,000 #XRP (USD 34,088,291) transferred from #Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/zfHG8o0Bbo
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 20, 2024
At the time of writing, Ripple controls approximately 6% of the current circulating supply. Therefore, it is only natural that large transactions like this one from Ripple would create waves in the market and lead to speculation. Consequently, the large transfers have reignited claims of Ripple selling off its assets in the meantime continued consolidation in the price of XRP.
Moreover, the debates over the programmatic selling of XRP have resurfaced as history shows that this is not new to Ripple. According to data shared by a social media user, Jim_Knox, Ripple is said to have supplied XRP to three market makers in 2017 for the purpose of market selling, resulting in a price suppression of the cryptocurrency during that specific period. Additionally, recent allegations have taken root that Ripple is using what it called the 4t and 6t bots to make programmatic sales to exchanges.
Ripple CTO addresses concerns
Ripple CTO David Schwartz took to a social media discussion to address the rumors of price manipulation. A member of the XRP community had shared a meme suggesting that Ripple’s 4t and 6t bots have always prevented the price of XRP from rising, keeping it at the $0.50 level.
However, Schwartz pointed out that Ripple has halted programmatic sales of XRP, where the company only sells its assets through ODL transactions. The ODL transaction method is Ripple’s unique payment solution that enables instant cross-border transactions. On the other hand, concerns about Ripple’s recent large transactions to unknown wallets have yet to be allayed, and at this point it all remains speculative.
XRP is trading at $0.5463 at the time of writing, down 0.50% in the past 24 hours, but still maintaining a measly 2% gain over 30 days. Recent transaction warnings from Whale Alerts have shown large amounts of XRP leaving behind private wallets to crypto exchanges, which indicates potential sell-out.
Token price stalls at $0.54 | Source: XRPUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from U.Today, chart from Tradingview.com
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