XRP/USD: Former Ripple’s CTO dumps his XRP tokens

• Jed McCaleb sold 54 million tokens to the tune of $11.7 million in April.
• XRP/USD is locked in a bearish trend as long as it stays below daily SMA100.

Ripple’s XRP is changing hands marginally above $0.2100 after a sell-off towards $0.2075 during early Asian hours. The third-largest digital asset has lost over 4.6% in the recent 24 hours and 4% since the beginning of the day. XRP is moving within a short-term bearish trend in sync with the cryptocurrency market. Ripple’s market capitalization retreated to $9.4 billion, while an average daily trading volume settled at $2.2 billion.

Ripple’s co-founder sells XRP tokens

Jed McCaleb, an American entrepreneur and a former Ripple’s chief technical officer (CTO) sold over  54 million XRP tokens, according to the data provided by TheCryptoAssociate. Ripple’s co-founder dropped his position in the company and started a new cryptocurrency project known as Stellar in 2014. However, is still one of the biggest XRP owners who regularly sells his assets. 

TheCryptoAssociate analyzed the activity on the cryptocurrency wallet address supposedly used by McCaleb to sell XRP and found out that 54,215,405 XRP was transferred to the wallet in April, worth $11.7 million.

McCaleb agreed to limit his monthly and annual sales of XRP to avoid the price collapse; however, despite the regular sell-off, he still has about 4.7 billion XRP on his accounts.

XRP/USD: Technical picture

The daily SMA200 on approach to $0.2270 limited XRP’s recovery during the weekend, while the sell-off below daily SMA100 at $0.2160 increased the downside pressure and pushed the price below $0.2100. While the coin managed to recover from the intraday low of $0.2075, it is still locked in the short-term bearish trend. The daily RSI points downwards, which means the bearish potential is not exhausted yet. 

The local support is created by 38.2$ Fibo retracement for the downside move from February 2020 high at $0.2030. It is followed by 4-hour SMA100 and a psychological $0.2000. On the upside, a sustainable move above daily SMA200 at $0.2270 and $0.2300 is needed for the recovery to gain traction.

XRP/USD daily chart