Ripple Releases 500 Million XRP Tokens From Its Escrow Account For April

The blockchain company behind XRP has released 500 million coins from its escrow account for April. This action falls in line with its monthly practice of unlocking XRP tokens into the market but comes when the firm is facing serious scrutiny of its sales of XRP.

Ripple Unlocks 50% Monthly XRP Tokens From Escrow

The prominent blockchain tracker and analytics data provider Whale Alert revealed the new Ripple’s XRP release. According to the data, the blockchain company completed the transaction at 02:51 (UTC) on April 1.

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Meanwhile, the 500 million XRP coins released into the market are worth over $314.87 million at the transaction time.

???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? 500,000,000 #XRP (314,874,965 USD) unlocked from escrow at unknown wallethttps://t.co/mapKFQkS6k

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 1, 2024

Also, the recipient Ripple’s account is yet to executive any transaction after the funds’ movement. Its balance remained at 500 million XRP tokens. 

However, the blockchain firm’s escrow wallet’s balance has slipped to 4.5 billion XRP coins. The next monthly XRP release is expected to be on May 1, 2024.

After this unlocking, Ripple’s escrow holding is over $24.7 billion, reflecting a massive part of XRP’s circulating supply. Unfortunately, the ongoing SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit has drawn more attention to Ripple’s past and present XRP sales.

Some legal details indicated that Ripple scaled its past institutional XRP sales using bots from a trading company, GSR. Many believed that this approach to XRP sales contributed to the suppressed price of the token.

However, Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, dispersed the rumors while assuring that the company had stopped such programmatic XRP sales. 

Ripple Shows A Deviation On Its Monthly Escrow Unlocks

Normally, Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP tokens from its escrow every month. However, over the past few months, the firm seems to have deviated from the pattern by releasing different amounts.

From the beginning of the year till date, Ripple has only maintained its normal unlocking pattern in January. It released 1 billion XRP coins on January 1, though it later relocked 800 million XRP afterward.

Ripple released just 600 million XRP tokens from its escrow on February 1. On February 25, the company completed its scheduled monthly release of one billion XRP by unlocking 400 million XRP.

Meanwhile, some crypto community members doubted the second unlocked tokens as part of the firm’s monthly escrow releases.

False! This is not an escrow unlock!

— Agent Crypto ????????️⚓WMS ???????????? (@Mr_Agent_4U) February 25, 2024

However, data from XRP blockchain explorer confirmed it as an escrow transaction from Ripple. Then, in March, Ripple unlocked just 500 million XRP tokens on the 1st. However, after the monthly release, the company relocked about 800 million XRP coins.

Further, on-chain data disclosed that the firm’s attempt for another escrow release in March was unsuccessful. The detail indicated the failure was due to the absence of a reference object.

While the current month’s unlocking value is just 50% of the usual amount, Ripple could execute an additional 500 million XRP unlocking later in the month. This will reflect the pattern it followed in its escrow unlocking process in February.

Meanwhile, the latest XRP release now brings Ripple’s total XRP holding to 39.5 billion tokens in over eight escrow wallets. Regarding the effect of the unlocking operation, as of 09:05 Am EST on April 1, XRP’s price hovers around $0.6123, showing a 2.34% decline over the past 24 hours. 

With a market cap of $33.64 billion, XRP is now the sixth-largest crypto asset. Also, its trade volume recorded a 43.45% increase to hit $1.35 billion.