Ripple to unlock 1 billion XRP on March 1; What’s next?

On the first day of every month, Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP tokens from an escrow system using the XRP Ledger. On March 1 (Friday), the company will unlock $600 million worth of tokens in three transactions of 200 million, 300 million, and 500 million XRP.

Interestingly, March 2024’s unlock accounts for 1.83% of the current 54.59 billion circulating supply. Moreover, accrues for 2.48% of the remaining 40.3 billion XRP tokens locked in escrows under Ripple’s control.

Three escrows will reach finality in the last minutes of February 29, held by two known crypto wallet addresses Ripple owns. In particular, ‘Ripple (22)’ will unlock 500 million XRP, previously locked in January 2020.

Ripple (22) assets – escrows. Source: XRP Scan

Second, ‘Ripple (23)’ will unlock 200 million and 300 million tokens, previously locked in February and January 2020, respectively. These are the last three escrows left for both accounts, but more unlock contracts are left in other Ripple-controlled addresses.

Ripple (23) assets – escrows. Source: XRP Scan

This is what Ripple did to the 1 billion XRP released in February

The escrow system unlocked 1 billion XRP on February 1. Later, Ripple re-locked 800 million of the total (80%) in escrows that will end by June and July 2027.

Monthly Ripple (XRP) unlock – February, 2024. Source: Finbold

Notably, despite keeping only 200 million XRP, the company spent 260 million tokens ($156 million) from its treasury account, ‘Ripple 1,’ in February. The sell-offs occurred in three batches, all sent to the same address, ‘rP4X2…Kxv3’.

As developed, Ripple sent the 200 million XRP to its reserves on February 1. Further, the payment protocol made one transaction of 120 million tokens on February 5 and one of 80 million XRP on February 11.

After using all the unlocked reserves, it received 100 million extra tokens from ‘Ripple (52),’ spending 60 million on February 20.

Ripple (1) account summary. Source: XRP Scan

As XRP is released each month, it contributes to the token’s inflation, with Ripple significantly influencing its market dynamics and value.

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