Ripple Unlocks One Billion XRP From Escrow, Will It Affect Price?

One Billion Ripple (XRP) Unlocked.

In line with its monthly token unlock initiative, Ripple’s popular blockchain network has unlocked yet another one billion units of XRP from escrow.

Whale Alert, the famous cryptocurrency tracking service, shared data of the transaction, which was split into two lumps of 500 million XRPs each.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 500,000,000 #XRP (164,451,059 USD) unlocked from escrow at Ripple Escrow wallethttps://t.co/rScsTvZnqc

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) July 1, 2022

The two transactions were completed at exactly the same time and it is not surprising to see that the dollar value of the two 500 million XRP lumps correspond in dollar value, with both worth approximately $329 million at the time the tokens were unlocked.

Ripple’s Token Unlock Program

It is noteworthy that the XRP unlock initiative has been consistent since 2017 and it is programmed to be made at the beginning of a new month.

The Ripple team is holding a large percentage of the XRP total supply, as part of efforts to keep the price afloat. Unlike most cryptocurrency projects, the team chose to gradually release the tokens under its custody in bits (usually 1 billion lump sum on a monthly basis) to the community.

However, due to the ongoing lawsuit between Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission that has continued to wreak havoc on the price of the crypto asset, the Ripple team chose to always lock back about 800-900 million units of the newly released tokens, and it usually takes place a few hours after the exercise has been completed.

The tokens are usually sent back to escrow to keep the value of XRP from diminishing further while the other 200 million tokens are usually left in circulation to cater to the company’s operational expenses.

Although Whale Alert did not share the transaction details of the newly unlocked XRP tokens sent back to Escrow, the movie is expected to be carried out later today.

Large XRP Transactions Recorded

Meanwhile, moments before Whale Alert shared details of unlocked XRP tokens, the cryptocurrency tracking service reported a large volume of XRP transactions made between several crypto exchanges and unknown wallets.

At first, a sum of 100 million XRP tokens were moved from the Ripple wallet to an unknown wallet.

? ? ? 100,000,000 #XRP (31,995,367 USD) transferred from Ripple to unknown wallethttps://t.co/eIt8G3oJTF

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 30, 2022

The unknown wallet later transferred the tokens to two cryptocurrency exchanges, with Bitstamp and Bitso receiving 40 million and 60 million XRPs, respectively.

After a while, the XRPs were sent back to the unknown wallets but this time with some gains, as Bitso and Bitstamp transferred 60.5 million and 44.9 million tokens, respectively, back to the unknown wallets.

XRP Not Largely Affected By Token Unlock

The tokens unlocked from escrow did not have much effect on the price of XRP, as the asset class is trading around the value it has been changing hands for most of the week.

At press time, XRP is trading at $0.31, representing a decline of 3.6%. The price decline of XRP stems from the cryptocurrency market’s bearish state and not from the token unlock.

– Advertisement –