Ripple CEO: We Can't Control XRP Price Any More Than Bitcoin Whales

The CEO of blockchain payment network Ripple says the company does not want to “dump” its associated XRP cryptocurrency despite selling huge amounts of it.

In an interview with CNN on Jan. 5, Brad Garlinghouse added fresh contention to the debate about Ripple’s relationship to XRP, which has gained 10% in the past 24 hours. 

Garlinghouse: Ripple “can’t control XRP price”

“In the XRP community, Ripple is the largest owner, and the point I have made is we’re the most interested party in the success of the XRP ecosystem,” he told the network. 

On the topic of how Ripple manages that ownership, Garlinghouse stated:

“Yes, Ripple owns a lot of XRP, we’re very interested in the success of XRP, but the accusations of us dumping, that’s not in our best interests to do that […]. We would never do that and in fact, we’ve taken steps to lock up most of the XRP we own in escrows so we can’t touch it.”

The comments jar with Ripple’s own market moves in 2019 and before. As Cointelegraph reported, the company has long been selling off XRP in bulk, with last year seeing it rid itself of more tokens than ever. 

At the start of 2020, the company released 1 billion XRP, worth around $200 million, from escrow as part of a planned operation.

XRP itself meanwhile hit more than two-year lows in December, dropping below $0.20 and at one point trading 96% below its all-time high of $3.40. A recovery, including 9% gains in the past 24 hours, has since sent XRP/USD back above the $0.20 barrier.

XRP 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Garlinghouse continued to surprise. Despite Ripple’s token share, he strongly denied the company could influence the XRP price.

“Oh no,” he protested when asked about the possibility, likening the situation to major Bitcoin (BTC) investors:

“Ripple can’t control the price of XRP any more than the whales can control the price of Bitcoin.”

Large XRP buyers would “hypothetically have restrictions”

Nonetheless, he said, Ripple would not respond well to other major investors owning a significant share of the XRP supply. In what appeared as a wish to nevertheless influence the market, Garlinghouse positioned Ripple as the enduring major token holder going forward.

“There are times when we work with institutional investors or might say, ‘Hey, we want to buy $10 million of XRP,’ and we would have lock-ups to prevent them from dumping on the market,” he continued.

Concluding, the executive said that such interventions were nonetheless “hypothetical:”

“We don’t want some other party buying a whole lot of XRP and dumping it on the market, and so we would hypothetically have restrictions about what they could sell and how often, and usually those are based on volume in the market.”