Litecoin (LTC) founder Charlie Lee announced today on Reddit and Twitter that he has completely unloaded all his Litecoin holdings via selling and donation. He wrote on Reddit:

“For the first time in 6+ years, I no longer own a single LTC that’s not stored in a physical Litecoin. (I do have a few of those as collectibles.)”

According to his Reddit post, the amount Lee sold was a small percentage of GDAX’s daily volume, and it did not crash the market.

Why sell?

According to the announcement, Lee decided to sell all of his Litecoin because of the potential for conflict of interest, given the influence his personal statements can have on the coin’s price.

He explained that by selling all his LTC, he can fully separate his own opinions and actions from the performance of the cryptocurrency, stating:

“…whenever I tweet about Litecoin price or even just good or bads news, I get accused of doing it for personal benefit. Some people even think I short LTC! So in a sense, it is a conflict of interest for me to hold LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence.”

Lee’s future

Lee did give some clue regarding his future, reassuring users that he is in no way abandoning his creation. With his own personal finances stable, he plans to devote himself to Litecoin, and expects to meet with a variety of other rewards beyond the price appreciation of his coins:

“Don’t worry. I’m not quitting Litecoin. I will still spend all my time working on Litecoin. When Litecoin succeeds, I will still be rewarded in lots of different ways, just not directly via ownership of coins. I now believe this is the best way for me to continue to oversee Litecoin’s growth.”

Lee also added an update to his Reddit post clarifying that he had no part in the Bitcoin Cash trading hiccup on Coinbase’s GDAX.  

Litecoin’s recent performance

Litecoin has risen to all-time high values in recent weeks. At press time, LTC was trading at $312, down from an all-time high of $371 yesterday, Dec. 19.

In the past month, LTC price has seen an almost 300 percent increase, up from $71.41 on Nov. 20.