Ripple Unlocks 1 Billion XRP From Escrow, as Whales Move 200M+ Tokens

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The latest escrow release comes exactly a month after Ripple unlocked 900M XRP, following an inexplicable 2-month pause.

Ripple has unlocked 1 billion XRP tokens from escrow in a series of three transactions for January. The latest transactions mark the second consecutive month of escrow transactions after the release on December 1 last year. This indicates sustenance of the monthly escrow unlock pattern following a 2-month break in October and November last year. After the escrow release, whales moved over 218M XRP between several wallets.

Whale Alert, a blockchain tracker and analytics system, recently pointed out two escrow transactions. The transactions which concurrently occurred on January 1 at midnight (UTC) saw the cumulative release of 1 billion XRP to two Ripple addresses. One of the addresses received 500M XRP in a single transaction.

🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 500,000,000 #XRP (170,074,826 USD) unlocked from escrow at unknown wallethttps://t.co/yymqzSjLYk

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 1, 2023

The second address received a total of 500M XRP in two escrow executions valued at 400M XRP and 100M XRP. Whale Alert only highlighted the former.

🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 400,000,000 #XRP (136,059,860 USD) unlocked from escrow at unknown wallethttps://t.co/MUUqTt3byO

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 1, 2023

Balances on both addresses currently sit at 1B XRP each at press time. Data from Bithomp reveals that the tokens received by both addresses have yet to be channeled to entities using Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution. In addition, they have also yet to be sent to other exchanges. The delay is unprecedented, as Ripple has always rerouted the funds on the same day they are unlocked.

It bears mentioning that this is not the first strange behavior observed from Ripple regarding the movements of escrowed funds. Notably, in October of last year, the American technology firm failed to release any tokens from escrow. In November, Ripple locked 1.2 billion XRP tokens without releasing any funds for the second consecutive month.

Preceding Whale Movements

Meanwhile, following the escrow transactions, XRP whales cumulatively moved over 218M XRP tokens valued at $75.3M at current rates. All transactions happened yesterday, the same day as the escrow unlock.

The first whale transaction was the largest, involving the movement of 148.7M XRP ($51.2M) between two unknown wallet addresses on January 1, 20:40 (UTC). The recipient address has so far redistributed the funds to several wallets belonging to Bitstamp, Independent Reserve, and Bitso.

In the second and third whale transactions, the recipient address from the first transaction transferred 30M XRP ($10.1M) and 40M XRP ($13.4M) to a single address affiliated with the London-headquartered exchange Bitstamp.

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