Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen Accused of Pumping and Dumping XRP Amid Price Drop

Blockchain detective ZachXBT reported that Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen transferred around $140 million in XRP to centralized exchanges (CEX). According to CoinGecko, the token’s price dropped nearly 9% in the last 24 hours.

On July 17, Larsen sent $30 million worth of XRP to Coinbase while the altcoin was trading near its all-time high (ATH) of $3.65. Over the following days, the Ripple co-founder transferred an additional approximately $110 million to the exchange.

At the time of writing, the asset’s price had decreased to $3.16.

In the community, there were speculations that Larsen was preparing to sell XRP, with accusations of him engaging in a «dump» of the cryptocurrency.

«A true gentleman—throwing his loyal fans under the bus with a sell-off,» commented a user named Retro.

ZachXBT humorously responded, stating that «those are the rules of the game.»

Another member of the crypto community, 0xLouisT, suggested that Larsen might be redistributing his holdings among long-term XRP investors to help decentralize the XRP Ledger network.

Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, the Deputy CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda, believes there is still a chance for XRP to surpass its 2018 price record of $3.84. He stated that the future performance of the token primarily depends on market conditions and the potential reallocation of capital from Bitcoin to altcoins, rather than on internal factors related to the Ripple project itself.

«XRP shows a high sensitivity to the overall market dynamics of altcoins,» the expert said in a comment to Cointelegraph.

It’s worth noting that on July 23, the asset surpassed Uber and BlackRock in market capitalization. Analysts predicted further growth for the asset, with trader Mikybull Crypto stating that the cryptocurrency’s next targets are $5 or $8.