Ripple is gearing up for its largest monthly sale of XRP tokens since 2017, as it plans to release 400 million tokens valued at $208 million in June. Despite the current bearish trends in the market, whale activity suggests that there is still significant interest from large investors.
In line with its regular practice, Ripple utilized the XRP Ledger escrow mechanism on June 1 to unlock 1 billion XRP tokens, equivalent to $520 million, from two designated accounts, namely “Ripple (24)” and “Ripple (25)”.
However, what makes this month’s sell-off stand out is the additional 200 million XRP tokens transferred from the dormant account “Ripple (35)” to “Ripple (1)”, on top of the usual 200 million tokens that are allocated to the Treasury each month. This indicates the possibility of a larger dump this month.
Furthermore, in May, “Ripple (24)” sent 200 million XRP tokens to “Ripple (1)”, followed by the transmission of 300 million tokens to “Ripple (13)” and the locking of these tokens in escrow until September 2027. Similarly, “Ripple (25)” transferred 500 million unlocked tokens to “Ripple (12)”, which were then locked until October 2027. These transactions have been verified by XRP Scan.
Since the introduction of escrows in 2017, Ripple has never set aside more than 350 million XRP tokens for its monthly dumps. Occasionally, the company retains some of the reserves from one month to facilitate a stronger sell-off opportunity in the following months. However, it has never dumped more than 400 million XRP tokens at once.
From January to May 2024, Ripple sold 226 million, 260 million, 240 million, 200 million, and 200 million tokens, respectively. While XRP pricing is still affected by supply inflation, the implementation of the escrow system in 2017 was a response to investor concerns regarding transparency.
Ripple’s sales put pressure on the spot market supply, often leading to local price crashes for the token. Out of the 12 sell-off days this year, only five have seen positive price action, underscoring the importance of monitoring Ripple’s operations. Three out of the first five months of 2024 witnessed negative monthly performance for XRP.
Currently, XRP is priced at approximately $0.5142, experiencing a 1.03% decrease in the last 24 hours and a negative position of 3.91% for the previous 7 days, according to CoinMarketCap data. Additionally, a whale has acquired $52 million worth of XRP tokens from Binance, as previously reported by CNF.
For more information about Ripple and XRP, including a guide on how to buy Ripple (XRP) and a Ripple XRP wallet tutorial, you can check out the recommended links.