Source: iStock/jurisam

Ripple, an American blockchain company focusing on payments technologies, reduced sales of XRP from its escrow fund last quarter when it secured USD 200 million in funding.

According to their report, the reductions in Q4 follows that sharp reduction that was recorded in Q3, with the main difference this time being that exchange sales of XRP have been cut to zero. Instead, all XRP sales by Ripple are now done as over-the-counter (OTC) trades, the company said. (Learn more: Ripple is Selling XRP at a Discount to Some Institutional Buyers)

In Q4, total sales dropped 80%, to USD 13 million, after falling 74% in Q3.

“[…] in Q2 2019, Ripple shifted to a more conservative volume benchmark for XRP sales, away from CoinMarketCap and to CryptoCompare Top Tier (CCTT) and significantly reduced XRP sales. In Q3 2019, Ripple further reduced XRP sales and paused programmatic sales (exchange sales). Ripple maintained this approach throughout the entirety of Q4,” the report for the 4th quarter of 2019 said.

The announcement about the further reduction in XRP sales from Ripple comes after the company in December said that it had raised USD 200 million in a Series C funding round from a group of notable investors. As reported, the funding round was led by global investment firm Tetragon, with participation from Ripple-friendly SBI Holdings and others.

The recent reduction in XRP selling also caught the attention of crypto analytics firm Messari, which pointed out that the USD 200 million capital raise almost canceled out the effect of the reduced XRP sales for Ripple:

“Interestingly, the steep drop-off coincides with Ripple’s USD 200 million Series C round announced in December of last year,” the firm wrote while adding:

“The USD 200 million capital raise would make a significant difference, closing the USD 342 million gap down from 1H’19 to 2H’19, showing that previous XRP sales have likely been used for funding Ripple’s ongoing operations.”

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Cumulative XRP sales surpassed USD 1.2 billion, according to Messari.

Source: Ripple, Messari, Cryptonews.com

In October 2019, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said that the company “has more than USD 305 million in cash in the bank” and also owns some USD 15 billion worth of XRP.

Meanwhile, today, the market speculates that Ripple may have an IPO planned for this year.

At pixel time (11:27 UTC), XRP trades at c. USD 0.216 and is down by 5% in a day and more than 8 in a week. The price dropped by almost 27% in the past 3 months.

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