Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple, has once again attracted attention from the crypto community. According to on-chain analytics, McCaleb sold 29.5 million XRP on December 6, 2020, when the token traded between $0.59 and $0.62, making the sale worth approximately $17 million. Earlier that week, McCaleb had been steadily offloading about 9.9 million XRP per day before suddenly tripling his daily selling volume.
From Ripple Co-founder to Billionaire
McCaleb entered the crypto space at an early stage. He co-founded Ripple (then known as Opencoin) in 2012 and originally held 9 billion XRP tokens—about 9% of the total supply. Blockchain analytics firm Whale Alert tracked that between 2014 and 2019, McCaleb sold 1.05 billion XRP (mostly via Bitstamp) at an average price of $0.129, netting $135 million. In 2020 alone (through August 3), he sold another 375 million XRP for approximately $75 million.
A Pioneering Career Beyond Ripple
McCaleb is also known for creating the infamous Mt. Gox exchange, which he later sold to Mark Karpeles. Before that, he developed the peer-to-peer file-sharing application eDonkey2000. After leaving Ripple in 2013, he co-founded Stellar (XLM) with Joyce Kim, a fork of the Ripple network that later adopted the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). Stellar is currently the 11th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a circulating supply of 21.76 billion XLM and a price of $0.16 per token.
McCaleb's wealth places him among the global elite. Forbes named him the 40th richest person in 2018, and the New York Times listed him as one of the top ten leaders of the "blockchain revolution." Despite his net worth exceeding $20 billion, McCaleb maintains a low profile. He has made notable charitable donations, including over 500,000 XRP to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI)—the largest single donation MIRI has ever received—and contributions to the OpenAI LP.
Continuous Selling and Market Dynamics
McCaleb's XRP wallet still holds a massive amount of tokens. Whale Alert observed that in September 2019, 100 million XRP flowed from Ripple to his known wallet. Although his periodic selling often raises concerns about market pressure, analysts note that Ripple's own liquidity is sufficiently deep, and McCaleb's sales are governed by a pre-agreed schedule with Ripple, limiting daily volume. This helps the market absorb his sales without severe disruption.
Current estimates suggest McCaleb holds over 8 billion XRP (worth about $48 billion at $0.6/XRP) plus substantial Stellar (XLM) and other assets. While his one-day dump of 29.5 million XRP on December 6 marked a sharp increase, it remains to be seen whether this signals a shift in his selling strategy. The market appears to have largely priced in his gradual divestment.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available blockchain data and reports from Whale Alert, CoinDesk, and Forbes as of December 10, 2020. Figures are estimates and subject to change.