In a recent statement, Ripple Chief Technology Officer (CTO) David Schwartz strongly denied allegations that Ripple is manipulating the price of XRP through programmatic sales.
Schwartz said the following regarding the issue in his statement:
“I do not believe our scheduled XRP sales manipulate the price in any way. “I am confident that we have made every effort to minimize the price impact of our scheduled sales.”
Schwartz flatly denied these accusations and said that Ripple stopped scheduled XRP sales starting from the first quarter of 2023 and that this was explained in detail in Ripple's 1st Quarter 2023 XRP Markets Report. He also stated that Ripple always tries to minimize the impact of such sales on the price.
As Schwartz explains, programmed sales represent sales that occur on exchanges through market making, usually with a slight net tendency to reduce holdings. Essentially, according to Schwartz, an asset is sold by helping others both buy and sell that asset, but the net result is selling rather than buying.
On the other hand, Schwartz also clarified the concept of On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) that Ripple uses in the international payment system. Sales associated with On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) occur when someone wants to pay somewhere using Ripple payments.
For example, if a person wants to send Mexican pesos, they can buy XRP from Ripple at the time they need to pay, send the XRP to a Mexican exchange, exchange the XRP for Mexican pesos, and then use a payment provider to make a Mexican local payment to the recipient. If Ripple receives back less XRP than was sold in this payment, this would be a net sale in conjunction with the ODL.
*This is not investment advice.