Bill Morgan, a well-known Australia-based lawyer and entrepreneur has delved into speculations regarding Ripple dumping of XRP to manipulate or suppress its price, debunking the claims and emphasizing transparency in the crypto asset’s management.
No Proof To Back Up Claims Against Ripple
Morgan’s insights on the subject were triggered by a pseudonymous X user noting that several people in the crypto community are going about claiming that Ripple’s dumping of XRP is a “conspiracy theory,” while calling on the lawyer to confirm these allegations.
Initially, the X user’s comment came in light of Onledger’s post concerning the distribution of XRP over the course of five years, particularly between 2019 to 2024. Onledger highlighted that within 5 years, the overall amount of distributed XRP (all XRP not owned by Ripple) has grown from 41.1 billion XRP to 55.05 billion XRP.
Meanwhile, during the aforementioned period, about 14 billion XRP was brought to the crypto market, primarily by Ripple, but also by the payment company’s co-founder and Stellar creator Jed McCaleb. It is worth noting that since 2014, Jed McCaleb was found dumping XRP, following the $9 billion in recompense he received for his work at the firm.
As a member of the founding team of Ripple in 2012, while it was still known as OpenCoin, McCaleb received a portion of the 20 billion XRP that was given to himself and the other two founders, Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto.
Rather than instantly selling all of his tokens after splitting from Ripple in 2013, McCaleb was compelled to unload them over an extended period of time. Specifically, an address identified as “Tacostand” which was linked to McCaleb was found responsible for the persistent selling pressure of the digital asset.
However, the selling pressure brought about by “Tacostand” had less of an effect on the price of XRP, or at least that was the purpose of the contract between Ripple and McCaleb.
Responding to the X user, Bill Morgan clarified his position, asserting that he had never said it was a conspiracy theory. According to Morgan, Ripple selling a significant amount of XRP into the market can naturally impact prices negatively in the same way as producers of oil may negatively impact prices by raising supply, provided that demand stays the same.
XRP Price Movement Follows The Broader Market
Morgan underscored statements suggesting that this is the main cause of the change in the price of XRP, which has been the subject of his criticism. This is because there is no available evidence to prove this was the major objective behind the price decline.
Meanwhile, the Ripple case provides proof that XRP’s price moves in tandem with the wider crypto market, particularly with respect to changes in the prices of Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC).
Thus, Morgan has flagged the subject as fudding since some people claim that Ripple is surpressing XRP’s value by dumping coins. He further highlights the fact that these people either purposefully or unintentionally ignore the numerous reasons why this is false.
Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com