One Billion XRP Moved From Ripple’s Escrow Wallet (No Need for a Dump Alert)

The movement happened in the early hours of Sep 1 and is believed to be just a part of the standard practice whereby Ripple releases one billion units of the token at the start of every month to regulate the upper limit of new XRP in circulation.

🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 1,000,000,000 #XRP (258,488,781 USD) unlocked from escrow at Ripple Escrow wallet

Tx: https://t.co/WG908ROBSg

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 1, 2019

Standard Ripple Procedures

The released amount will be made available for sale to cryptocurrency exchanges and institutional participants. After selling a part of the stack over-the-counter, Ripple will bring back the remaining XRP tokens into the source Escrow Wallet. Ripple officially informed the community about this practice in Dec 2017. Per the whitepaper explaining the move, the monthly release of one billion XRP will continue for 55 months before coming to an end on sometime during mid-2021. The company explained at the time:

“The escrow consists of independent on ledger escrows that release a total of one billion XRP each month over the next 55 months. This provides an upper limit on the amount of new XRP that can be brought into circulation.”

Note that a dump alert went off earlier last month after Whale Alert spotted an identical movement of one billion XRP tokens in the wee hours of Aug 1. Many in the broader crypto space mistook the transaction for a classic ‘pump and dump scheme,’ as Ripple is often accused of conducting to boost its bottom-line at the expense of investors. On a related note, Ripple has been observed moving huge stashes of XRP of late. Just the day before, BeInCrypto covered that the San Francisco-based company moved an additional 522,522,373 XRP tokens (~$132M) to an unknown address.

Concerned Investors

A recent internal report revealed that Ripple had sold off XRP worth over $250 million in Q2 2019 alone. That’s a 50% increase compared to the previous quarter. The net worth of XRP sold by the company in the first six or so months of 2019 stands at over $400 million. Under these circumstances, it’s hardly a surprise that so many investors are worried that Ripple’s devil-may-care attitude is essentially contributing to the gradual decline of an already-troubled XRP ecosystem that has been at the receiving end of one setback after another. Worth noting here is that an XRP investor had launched an online petition about a month ago urging Ripple to refrain from selling any more of its holdings. As of press time, the petition has bagged more than 2,850 signatures on Change.org. What’s your view on Ripple continuing the practice of selling huge stashes of XRP despite all the pleas by investors? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.