Cryptocurrency giant Ripple has unlocked its monthly token lock and released 1 billion XRP, leading to new speculations in the crypto world. This routine practice, noticed by Whale Alert, a whale tracking platform, seems to demonstrate Ripple’s commitment to market stability.
Ripple announced the unlocking of 1 billion XRP tokens through three separate transactions. In the first transaction, approximately 500 million XRP worth around $301 million was released. Following that, an additional 300 million XRP worth $180.6 million was put into circulation. Lastly, 200 million XRP worth $120.4 million was withdrawn from Ripple’s escrow account. The total value of the released tokens was calculated to be around $613 million.
These unlocking events by Ripple are happening under the escrow system introduced in December 2017. Initially, the company had locked 55 billion XRP in escrow accounts. They had announced a plan to release 1 billion XRP every month for 55 months to stabilize the XRP market.
However, Ripple has taken additional steps to ensure market stability. Shortly after the expected release of the 1 billion coins into the market, a significant amount of XRP was re-locked. At the time of writing, Ripple had not reinvested a portion of the newly released 1 billion cryptocurrency into its escrow account.
Following the unlocking transaction on December 1st, Ripple’s escrow balance now stands at 39.9 billion XRP. Looking back, it can be observed that a large portion of the unlocked XRP has been re-locked.
Despite the unlocking of 1 billion XRP, the price of XRP, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, did not experience a negative market reaction and remained relatively stable. In the past 24 hours, the XRP price increased by 1.77%, trading at $0.6139, while its market value rose by 1.8% to $33.08 billion. During this time, the trading volume decreased by approximately 15%.