Ripple locks 200M XRP back into escrow, valued at $272M

Ripple has returned 200 million XRP, worth roughly $272 million at current prices, back into its escrow system. The transaction, flagged by blockchain tracker Whale Alert, is part of the company’s recurring monthly ritual of unlocking and then re-locking the vast majority of its token reserves. How Ripple’s escrow machine works The escrow system dates back to December 2017, when Ripple deposited 55 billion XRP into a series of time-locked smart contracts. The mechanism was designed to address a very specific concern: that Ripple, which controls a huge chunk of XRP’s total 100 billion token supply, might flood the market and crater the price. Each month, a maximum of 1 billion XRP becomes eligible for release. The unlocks typically happen in tranches on the first of the month. Recent releases have followed a pattern of 500 million, 400 million, and 100 million XRP batches. But the unlock is only half the story. Historically, Ripple re-locks between 600 million and 800 million XRP back into escrow within days of the release. That means the net amount actually entering potential circulation each month lands somewhere between 200 million and 300 million XRP. The shrinking escrow balanc...