As Ripple’s leadership highlighted its hopes of better regulatory clarity from the Biden administration in 2021, co-founder Jed McCaleb has moved millions of XRP tokens in recent days.
2020 will be a year to forget for Ripple due to the US Securities and Exchange Commission instituting legal proceedings against the firm for what the regulator deems to have been an illegal securities offering of XRP tokens over the past few years.
As a lengthy court battle looms, Ripple’s leadership delivered a statement on their hopes and predictions for 2021 which skirted around the issue of its legal battle with the SEC. Nevertheless a notable section of the blog post highlighted hopes of more favourable regulatory moves by the incoming Biden presidency in the United States.
The section highlights the belief that the new administration will deliver ‘renewed focus’ on regulation and enforcement in the cryptocurrency space. The piece notes that countries like the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan are ahead of the curve in this regard and a lack of clear frameworks has stifled the growth of the fintech and blockchain in America.
Ripple’s General Counsel Stu Alderoty highlighted his belief that the Biden administration will prioritize cryptocurrency regulation which could expedite a ‘unified framework’ and application process for fintech companies looking for cryptocurrency licenses.
“Intelligent, well thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.,” said Alderoty.
McCaleb moves millions of XRP
While the Ripple team begins to tackle the new year, cofounder Jed McCaleb made headlines this week as he moved millions of XRP tokens from his holdings. The news was originally reported by Decrypt and Cointelegraph after cryptocurrency researcher Leonidas Hadjiloizou flagged the transaction on Twitter.
McCaleb named his XRP wallet ‘tacostand’, as it is identified on the Bithomp explorer and by Hadjiloizou in his Twitter post. As the researcher noted, McCaleb hadn’t moved any XRP from the wallet since December.
In the time since Hadjiloizou noted the first transaction on January 18, virtually the same amount of XRP has been moved from the wallet on concurrent days on January 18, 19 and 20 as the screenshot below shows.
McCaleb left Ripple in 2013 and co-founded Stellar payment network where he still serves as the chief technology officer. McCaleb previously created the now infamous defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, which he sold to Mark Karpelès in 2011.
McCaleb has been receiving XRP tokens from the firm for his role in founding Ripple. It’s understood that McCaleb was awarded over 9 billion XRP from Ripple and receives regular payouts on a fixed schedule. Part of the agreement was that McCaleb would not sell all of his XRP at one time – hence the scheduled payments of XRP tokens to his tacostand wallet.
