From Ripple's Departure to Billionaire Status: The Jed McCaleb Story Unfolds

Jed McCaleb, Ripple’s co-founder, recently made headlines again by addressing longstanding questions about his substantial XRP liquidation through a social media post. The cryptocurrency entrepreneur firmly rejected claims that he orchestrated massive token sales to punish investors or express frustration with the company’s direction. Instead, McCaleb framed his strategy as transparent communication with the community. When challenged about why he publicly announced his sales intentions, he posed a pointed counterargument: was maintaining secrecy while offloading assets the preferable approach?

The Long History: From 9 Billion XRP to Complete Exit

McCaleb’s connection to XRP traces back to Ripple’s inception in 2012, when he received a substantial allocation of 9 billion tokens as a co-founder. However, his tenure proved short-lived. By 2013, philosophical differences with Ripple’s vision prompted his departure. Rather than disappear from the crypto space, McCaleb pivoted to founding Stellar, a competing project that embodied his alternative approach to blockchain technology.

The XRP saga that would define much of the next decade began in 2014, when McCaleb negotiated an exit agreement with Ripple that permitted gradual token liquidation. Early restrictions capped his weekly sales at just $10,000, a modest figure reflecting the era’s limited market infrastructure. This arrangement soon proved contentious—Ripple management alleged that McCaleb exceeded contractual limits, leading to legal conflict between the entrepreneur and his former company.

Revised Terms and the Volume-Based Model

A settlement emerged in 2016, introducing a new framework: McCaleb’s sales would now correlate with XRP’s trading volume, theoretically allowing larger liquidations during peak market activity. This mechanism persisted until 2022, when McCaleb finally completed his exit by fully liquidating his remaining XRP holdings.

Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz previously alleged that McCaleb had attempted a concentrated dump of all holdings simultaneously, and that legal intervention prevented such market disruption. Schwartz’s colorful assessment quipped that McCaleb would “probably be the only person to become a self-made billionaire despite his best efforts”—a reference to his apparent reluctance to accumulate wealth on this scale.

The $3.2 Billion Fortune and Its New Purpose

The proceeds from McCaleb’s XRP sales, combined with earlier company equity stakes, accumulated to an extraordinary $3.2 billion fortune. Recent reports revealed that the crypto entrepreneur has redirected this wealth toward an ambitious venture: financing development of what is positioned as the world’s first privately-operated commercial space station.

This pivot from digital assets to orbital infrastructure represents a striking diversification strategy and underscores McCaleb’s longstanding pattern of launching transformative projects—from Mt. Gox (the early Bitcoin exchange he founded) through Stellar and beyond.