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Ripple Labs have unlocked approximately $1.6 billion worth of their native token XRP from its escrow wallet today,
This according to Whale Alert, a service that tracks the movement and transactions of large amounts of cryptocurrencies.
Although the circulating volume of XRP was increased by roughly 2%, the unlocking of 1 billion XRP seemed to have little or no effect on the price. A small drop was noticed but the price quickly recovered. XRP is now trading at $1.60 a piece.
Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, in the case of XRP, it is one entity, Ripple Labs that controls the majority of the supply. Until the recent release. Ripple Labs held 55% of the total supply of 100 billion tokens in escrow. This to keep the price steady. Another 20 billion, or 20%, are kept by Ripple Labs for XRPs creators. Every month the company releases some XRP from escrow.
Ripple Labs is currently involved in a fight in court with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after was hit with a $1.3 billion lawsuit in December of 2020. According to the SEC, XRP tokens are considered a security.
The case has seen many developments, with Ripple celebrating numerous recent wins. Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse, has also previously stated that XRP will keep on trading even without Ripple Labs. There are also powerful rumors going around of the company is preparing to go public once the lawsuit is over.
Today, XRP is the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.