Ripple reports lowest quarterly XRP sales ever, selling just $1.75 million in Q1 2020
Ripple has historically distributed the XRP in its treasury through two channels: programmatic and institutional direct. Programmatic refers to XRP sales done through exchanges. Institutional Direct refers to XRP sales done over-the-counter (OTC) to strategic partners.
Until Q3’19 Ripple performed programmatic sales according to a set percentage of trading volume (20bps). However, due toconcerns over volume inflation, Ripple eventually decided to halt programmatic salespart-way through Q3, instead electing to focus solely on its OTC sales with a few strategic partners, who are building XRP utility and liquidity in strategic regions.
Thus, in their latest two quarters Ripple did not sell any XRP through its programmatic channels. In Q2 2020 Ripple sold just $1.75 million worth of XRP OTC. The $1.75 million figure is the lowest amount of XRP they’ve sold in their quarterly sales ever.
Interestingly, the steep drop off coincides with Ripple’s$200 million Series C round announced in December of last year. The $200 million capital raise would make a significant difference closing the $342 million sales gap from 1H’19 to 2H’19. Furthermore, the timing of the XRP sales drop off and the capital raise provides support for the hypothesis that previous XRP sales have likely been used for funding Ripple's ongoing operations. In March Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed Ripple would not be profitable or cash flow positive without selling XRP.
Ripple is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit regarding whether or not XRP is a security, and whether or not Ripple’s quarterly XRP sales are on-going securities sales.
