Ripple has unlocked 500 million XRP from escrow for the month of April amid increased scrutiny of its XRP sales by the XRP community.
The latest escrow execution, indexed by Whale Alert, occurred today at 02:51 (UTC), with the 500 million XRP valued at a whopping $314,874,965 ($314.87 million) at the time of the execution.
🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 500,000,000 #XRP (314,874,965 USD) unlocked from escrow at unknown wallethttps://t.co/mapKFQkS6k
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 1, 2024
Notably, the Ripple address that received the tokens has not distributed or sold them off as of the time of this report, maintaining a balance of 500 million XRP. The wallet’s escrow balance has now depleted to 4.5 billion XRP tokens, with the next execution scheduled for May 1.
While Ripple typically unlocks 1 billion XRP from escrow every month, some months witness a deviation from this pattern. For instance, the blockchain payments firm only released 500 million XRP last month, but it persisted in its pattern of relocking 800 million tokens.
On-chain data confirms that another escrow execution attempt for March failed due to a missing reference object. Moreover, Ripple also unlocked only 600 million XRP from escrow on Feb. 1. However, in an exciting twist, the firm completed the 1 billion quota much later in the month, on Feb. 25.
Throughout this year, January is the only month that has recorded Ripple’s characteristic escrow unlock pattern. The firm releases 1 billion tokens on the first day of the month and relocks 800 million XRP shortly after the escrow execution.
It remains to be seen if the blockchain company will release an additional 500 million XRP for April, mirroring the February pattern. Nonetheless, at the reporting time, only 500 million tokens have left escrow for this month. Following the latest execution, Ripple holds 39.5 billion XRP in escrow across eight wallets.
Ripple Escrow and XRP Sales Under Scrutiny
The escrowed assets are currently worth $24.7 billion, representing a significant portion of the XRP tokens in existence. Ripple’s substantial escrow holdings have taken center stage in recent times amid increased scrutiny of the company’s past and present XRP sales.
This increased scrutiny is a result of discoveries made from the SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit. Previously, information from past legal documents confirmed that Ripple leveraged bots from trading firm GSR to execute past XRP sales to institutions.
This triggered speculation that Ripple’s sales suppressed XRP’s price. However, the Ripple CTO David Schwartz debunked these claims, confirming that the firm already ended these institutional sales.
Most recently, the SEC made a demand for $2 billion in fines from Ripple for these past institutional sales. Speculation has emerged that the firm could sell off some of its escrowed XRP tokens to meet this demand if the judge rules in favor of the SEC.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s CTO has persistently maintained that burning the escrow would not positively impact XRP’s price amid calls from community members. According to Schwartz, Ripple is looking to reduce its escrowed balance as quickly as possible, hence the XRP sales.
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