Over the past three weeks, Ripple has moved a total of 506 million XRP tokens, valued at approximately $260 million, using two of its controlled addresses. These transactions have raised concerns about potential systemic selloffs and speculation that the company might be leveraging its XRP holdings to fund acquisitions.
The large-scale transfers began on Friday, September 3, when Ripple unlocked 1 billion tokens from escrow for the month. The first transfer involved a Ripple-controlled wallet sending 29.7 million XRP ($15 million) to the U.K.-based exchange Bitstamp. The same Ripple-controlled address was responsible for 11 more transfers, each involving an excess of 29 million tokens. The last two transactions saw the movement of 29.6 million XRP ($14.5 million) on Friday, September 17, and 30 million XRP ($15.1 million) on Saturday, September 18.
Another Ripple-controlled address carried out the remaining transactions, moving a total of 175 million XRP tokens in two transactions on Monday, September 11, and Saturday, September 18. These tokens were sent to another Ripple-affiliated wallet and subsequently routed through several addresses to exchanges.
These transactions have stirred up intense speculation within the XRP community due to their repetitive nature and targeted destinations. Notably, most of the transferred tokens were moved to Bitstamp, an exchange in which Ripple acquired a stake back in May for an undisclosed amount.
The magnitude of these transactions has caused ripples in the market, leading to speculations about potential systemic selloffs. The recent acquisition of financial services entity Fortress by Ripple has further added fuel to the fire. Questions are being raised about whether Ripple could potentially be leveraging its XRP holdings to facilitate such acquisitions.
However, it is important to note that Ripple has a history of moving large amounts of XRP for various operational reasons. In August, the firm transferred 31 million XRP and in March, it moved 120 million XRP in a single transaction. Ripple also transferred 100 million XRP in February and January to several addresses.
As of press time, neither Ripple nor Bitstamp has provided any official insight into these recent transactions. The crypto community awaits an official response, perhaps in Ripple's next quarterly report on its XRP sales. At time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.5139.
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