Ripple Escrow Activities Trigger Market Concerns with 3 Billion XRP Transfer Worth $1.5B – Will XRP Price Dump?

• Ripple moved over 3 billion XRP tokens in the past day, worth $1.5 billion and accounting for over 5% of the circulating supply in its scheduled escrow releases.
• While some community members and analysts expressed concern that they could increase pressure on the token’s price, the community remains confident in Ripple’s commitment.

Every month, Ripple releases millions of XRP from its escrows, part of which it sells to fund ecosystem developments and locks up the rest. This month, the company is under increased scrutiny after releasing much more XRP than it usually does, with some concerned that it could dump on the market and suppress the price of the token.

As noted by Whale Alert, this month, Ripple moved three billion tokens in one of the highest escrow releases ever. It started with moving 200 million XRP (worth $104 million) from an unknown wallet (presumably the escrow wallet) to Ripple’s wallets.

This was followed up by the transfer of 300 million XRP ($155 million), 500 million XRP ($260 million), another 500 million XRP, 300 million XRP, 200 million XRP, 500 million XRP and yet another 500 million XRP. In total, three billion XRP, worth over $1.5 billion, moved from unknown wallets to Ripple wallets. This accounted for 5.45% of the entire token’s circulating supply.

Most of the XRP community quickly noted that these were expected transfers from escrow to Ripple wallets, with analyst Michael Nardoillo stating, “Majority of these are internal movements and escrow relock ups. Everyone it says ‘unknown’ account the bot was wrong and it was still a Ripple account.”

Don't worry, folks! #Ripple is releasing large sums of XRP from their escrow account to sell on the market—more than 3 billion #XRP, which is equivalent to $1.5 billion. This has been happening on the first day of each month for the past four years. pic.twitter.com/M4PoXs7cmh

— Collin Brown (@CollinBrownXRP) June 2, 2024

However, as noted by some analysts, Ripple usually sells around $200 million in tokens, making the release of the higher-than-usual amount of tokens suspicious.

Ripple is unlikely to dump $1.5 billion worth of XRP into the market, a commitment it has reiterated several times in the past. Such a dump would directly go against its interests as the largest XRP holder in the world. $1.5 billion would obliterate the XRP market and likely suppress the price; for context, in the past 24 hours, the entire XRP ecosystem only traded $1 billion worth of the token, and this was after a 72% surge in volume.

What’s Next for XRP?

XRP trades at $0.5188, gaining marginally over the past day. This aligns with the broader market, whose overall market cap only rose by 0.73%.

Despite recent lacklustre price movements, the XRP community remains committed to the token. In the past day, an XRP holder withdrew over 77 million XRP tokens from Binance to unknown wallets in two transactions worth a combined $40 million. Withdrawal of tokens from an exchange indicates a commitment to holding them for long periods and is a bullish signal. It also reduces the selling pressure on the exchanges, boosting a token’s chance at a price rally.