‘Sick to My Stomach‘: Why Dave Portnoy Fumbled His XRP Bag Before the Boom

Just days after Dave Portnoy said he’d have “no further comments” on selling off his XRP stash before the recent price surge, the Barstool Sports founder discussed the move further on his daily “Davey Day Trader Global” stream, sharing more about the misplay.

Last week, Portnoy said that he’d missed out on “millions” of dollars by selling his bag of XRP at a price of $2.40—not long before the Ripple-linked cryptocurrency surged in value, reaching a new all-time high price of $3.65 last week per data from CoinGecko.

On Monday, Portnoy provided more detail about why he sold off the XRP bag, explaining that the coin had been rangebound between $2.10 and $2.40, and that his “XRP guy”—an unnamed advisor who told him to buy the coin in the first place—was getting uncomfortable about USDC stablecoin issuer Circle… for some reason.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, not good news that Circle is gonna do what XRP is doing,’” Portnoy said. “I don’t even really know what he’s talking about.”

It’s unclear exactly what his “XRP guy” was talking about, but Portnoy took it as a sign to sell off his XRP stake, which he said was valued at close to $3 million at the time.

And then XRP surged.

“No sooner did I sell it, the thing went parabolic,” he said. “It’s like $3.50. I blinked. [It] made me sick to my stomach. But what are you gonna do?”

XRP broke its seven-year-old price peak of $3.40 last Thursday, building off momentum that began following President Trump’s election win in November. The asset has also been boosted by interest from ETF issuers in launching funds based on the asset, as well as the imminent conclusion of the SEC’s long-running lawsuit against Ripple.

Ripple co-founders also created the XRP cryptocurrency, and the company has over the years sold off large amounts of its stash to the tune of billions of dollars. The SEC sued Ripple in late 2020 alleging securities violations, but the parties have since settled in court, with Ripple only required to pay a relatively small fine.

XRP is currently priced at $3.60, nearly matching its current all-time high mark of $3.65 earlier Monday morning.

In the clip shared to his X account, Portnoy noted that he’s “still doing good” with Bitcoin and Ethereum investments, but admitted that the XRP miss “hurt”

Portnoy has a long history of sharing his crypto investment misplays, including saying in 2021 that he “fucked up Bitcoin” by panic-selling his stash after a dip.