As 2023 draws to a close, Ripple could sell over 96 million XRP coins currently being held in its main wallet address.
Prominent crypto payment company Ripple has been spending a huge chunk of the tokens unlocked from escrow.
Ripple Escrow System
For context, the Ripple escrow system, established in December 2017, was programmed to release 1 billion XRP monthly.
As part of efforts to stabilize the XRP market, Ripple usually re-locks 80% (800M) of the 1B XRP back in escrow. Most of the remaining 20% (200M) XRP coins are sent to the company’s main wallet labeled “Ripple 1.”
Interestingly, the company then distributes the tokens to different unlabeled addresses before they eventually find their way to centralized exchanges, where they are sold via blind bid/ask transactions.
Ripple Spends 240M XRP in December
In a routine procedure, Ripple sent 200M XRP from the 1B coins unlocked in December 2023 from one of its wallet addresses labeled “Ripple 22” to the main account.
Following the transaction, the spending wallet had a balance of 336,340,276 (336.34 million) XRP as of December 1. So far, Ripple has spent 240M XRP from the total sum in three tranches.
The first spending occurred on December 6, 2023, with Ripple sending 60M XRP to an unlabeled address. It also sent another 60M XRP to the same unlabeled address six days later.
Additionally, the company sent 120M XRP to the same address on December 20, bringing “Ripple 1” total spending this month to 240M XRP ($148.8 million).
Over 96M XRP Remains Liquid
With 240M XRP spent in December, Ripple’s main spending wallet now has a balance of 96,340,276 (96.34 million) XRP. At the current price of $0.62 per coin, the Ripple 1 XRP balance is equivalent to $59.73 million.
Ripple can decide to sell the coins before the year ends or keep them in the wallet until next year. Should Ripple choose to dump the 96.34 million XRP, the company is expected to do so without causing a negative impact on the price.
40.7B XRP Still Locked in Escrow
While Ripple still has 96.34 million of liquid XRP stashed in its spending address, its escrow account currently holds 40.7 billion XRP.
The company will continue to unlock hundreds of millions of these coins from escrow until 2027. It is worth noting that the initial plan was to release 1B XRP from the 55B tokens locked in escrow for 55 months.
However, with hundreds of millions of XRP re-locked in escrow after each successful unlock, the company extended the deadline to 2027.
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