XRP Drops 3% As Ripple Unlocks 1 Billion XRP from Escrow

Ripple has unlocked 1 billion XRP from escrow for September, a move coinciding with a correction that has seen XRP drop by over 3% in 24 hours.

Prominent whale-tracking platform Whale Alert first called attention to the escrow unlocks in a series of automated posts on X (formerly Twitter). All transactions occurred concurrently today at midnight (UTC).

Ripple’s Escrow Unlocks

Notably, Ripple unlocked this month’s 1 billion tokens across four uneven transactions today. The first transaction, Escrow Execution 11, released 200 million XRP valued at $102 million. 

Another transaction, Escrow Execution 13, involved 300 million XRP worth $153.2 million. The 200 million XRP and the 300 million XRP batches moved to the same Ripple-controlled address, bringing the address’s balance to 1 billion XRP.

The remaining two transactions involved the release of another batch of 500 million tokens. One transaction, Escrow Execution 12, saw the release of 400 million XRP worth $204.2 million. The last transaction, Escrow Execution 13, involved 100 million XRP valued at $51 million.

None of the four transactions for this month came with a strange Memo, as in August. Recall that one of the escrow release transactions for last month came with an eerie Memo, triggering speculations among proponents.

As of press time, Ripple has yet to return any of the recently unlocked tokens to escrow. The firm typically locks back most of the unlocked tokens after taking out the required amount. It returned 800 million XRP last month.

Shortly after the escrow release, Ripple moved 19.9 million XRP worth $10.1 million to Binance. The transaction occurred today at 00:35 (UTC) and involved no recently released tokens.

? 19,920,318 #XRP (10,167,904 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Binancehttps://t.co/rohMiU9pUQ

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 1, 2023

XRP Plummets 3%

These escrow releases and whale movements from Ripple coincide with a drop in XRP’s value. Amid the prevalent market-wide correction, XRP has plummeted by 3.51% over the last 24 hours.

XRP has continued to face declines since surging to $0.5496 on August 29. At its current price of $0.5087, XRP is down 7.4% from the August 29 high. The asset has registered two consecutive losing sessions over the last two days. 

However, XRP’s bearish position is not unique, as the rest of the market is witnessing a corrective storm. Particularly, Bitcoin (BTC), the firstborn crypto, is down 4.48% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the overall crypto market has declined by 3.35% in valuation.