Ripple Labs is free to sell XRP ($2.49) tokens to raise operational capital, according to comments from the company’s chief technology officer. His remarks have sparked concerns among cryptocurrency investors.
“XRP isn’t a security because Ripple doesn’t actually owe you ‘utility’ or anything else,” Pierre Rochard, vice president of research at Riot Platforms, wrote in a March 5 X post.
“They are free to dump on you and you have no right to do anything about it other than join them in dumping XRP,” Rochard said, cautioning that investors are “not investing in Ripple,” just “getting tokens created out of thin air dumped on you.”
Source: Pierre Rochard“100% correct. IMO, Ripple can, will, and should act in its own interest,” responded David “JoelKatz” Schwartz, the chief technology officer of Ripple, adding:
“You should not expect Ripple to act in your interest to the detriment of its own interest or those of its shareholders.”
The comments come during a period of heightened investor interest in Ripple’s XRP (XRP) reserves, just two days after blockchain investigator ZachXBT uncovered a dormant XRP wallet worth over $7 billion, which may belong to Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.
“With the announcement of the US Crypto Reserve here’s your reminder that XRP addresses activated by Chris Larsen (co-founder of Ripple) still hold 2.7B+ XRP ($7.18B) and these addresses tied to him transferred $109M+ worth of XRP to exchanges in January 2025,” the investigator wrote in a March 3 Telegram .
However, most of these addresses have been dormant for over six years, meaning Larsen may have lost access.
Related: Trump to host first White House crypto summit on March 7
XRP rally short-lived despite Trump reserve announcement
XRP outperformed the wider crypto market along with Cardano’s (ADA ($0.98)) and Solana’s (SOL ($144.98)) token on March 3 after US President Donald Trump announced that his Working Group on Digital Assets had been directed to include these three altcoins in the US crypto strategic reserve, along with Bitcoin (BTC ($89,670.98)) and Ether (ETH ($2,211.16)).
Despite the news, XRP could not recapture the $3.00 psychological mark, after peaking at $2.99 on March 2, before falling to the current $2.50 mark, Cointelegraph Markets Pro data shows.
XRP/USD, 1-month chart. Source: CointelegraphStill, analysts cautioned that the altcoin rally may be short-lived as Trump’s crypto reserve is subject to congressional approval, a lengthy process that may lead to investor disappointment, Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at blockchain analytics firm Nansen told Cointelegraph, adding:
“I think constituting a reserve by buying new tokens is a complex process that will need Congress’s vote, so it will take time. I would be a bit wary of the sustainability of today’s move.”
Related: Memecoins: From social experiment to retail ‘value extraction’ tools
Trump had previously promised to establish a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile” at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
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