

Ripple hit by dispute over founders' initial stake in the currency - FatalLogic
http://www.followthecoin.com/ripple-attack-dogs-descend-resigned-board-member

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FatalLogic
The person who posted the linked legal demand is Jesse Powell, an ex board
member of Ripple Labs, who resigned yesterday.

Complicated story. Here's some background.

Ripple is known as a digital currency and currency exchange network, although
that's a simplification. Some of its functions are comparable to Bitcoin.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29)

Three founders of Ripple Labs, Jed McCaleb, Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto,
gave themselves 20% (20 billion units), of the currency (known as XRP or
Ripples) which is used by the Ripple protocol [1]. McCaleb's share was 9
billion XRP. A few days ago, McCaleb unexpectedly announced he will soon start
to sell what remains of his share. As 9 billion is more than the total amount
of XRP currently in circulation, the price of XRP fell 40%-50% after his
announcement, cutting about US$30 million from the total value.

At the price today, the money supply of all XRP in circulation is worth US$28
million. The value would be $370 million if calculated for the total of 100
billion units of XRP that exist.

About Ripple Labs:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_Labs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_Labs)

[1] Jed McCaleb's announcement that he is selling:
[https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-
xrp/](https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-xrp/)

Jed McCaleb on Reddit:
[http://reddit.com/user/Swamp12](http://reddit.com/user/Swamp12)

Jesse Powell on Reddit:
[http://reddit.com/user/jespow](http://reddit.com/user/jespow)

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pyalot2
The folly of premined cryptocurrencies is a well explored and established fact
in the realm of altcoins. Somehow ripple thought they where immune.

~~~
FatalLogic
>The folly of premined cryptocurrencies is a well explored and established
fact in the realm of altcoins.

I don't know if the folly of premining was established before, but it is now.
Ripple will be an example to anyone who says this can't happen because nobody
would depress the value of their own stake like McCaleb has done.

In the long run, it's good for Ripple that these large amounts of money will
no longer be in one set of hands, if it survives, but it's not good for anyone
who hoped to make a quick profit from owning XRP.

Bitcoin also has an issue with a large quantity of coins held by the
developer.

