Why’s Ripple Unlocking 500M XRP Worth $306M in the Middle of the Month?

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Why’s Ripple Unlocking 500M XRP Worth $306M in the Middle of the Month?
  • Ripple unlocked 500M XRP valued at over $306.5 million early today.
  • The transaction fulfills the uncompleted amount of XRP released on April 1.
  • In February, Ripple unlocked 600M XRP on the first day and later released 400M at the end of the month.

The crypto community has witnessed the surprising release of half a billion XRP tokens from an escrow, sparking questions regarding the purpose behind the unusual unlock. Whale Alert drew attention to this development in recent posts on X. According to the update, an escrow wallet released 500,000,000 XRP valued at over $306.5 million early today in two transactions. 

The first transaction occurred at 05:05:31 UTC, involving the release of 200 million XRP valued at $122,636,247. Four minutes later, the second transaction occurred, releasing 300 million XRP valued at $183,898,502 from escrow.

While Whale Alert called the destination of the 500 million XRP unknown, on-chain data affirmed that the escrow execution emerged from Ripple. The timing of this escrow release sparked attention in the crypto community, considering that such executions from Ripple are designed to occur on the first day of each month. 

Notably, on April 1, Ripple released only 500 million XRP instead of the expected 1 billion XRP on the first day of the month. Essentially, the payment firm has executed this latest transaction to fulfill the anticipated 1 billion XRP for the month.

Meanwhile, this inconsistency in Ripple’s escrow service is not occurring for the first time. In February, the firm released 600 million XRP in two transactions, while the third transaction failed. Nonetheless, Ripple completed the February escrow execution by the end of the month, releasing 400 million XRP.

A similar situation arose in March when it released 500 million XRP, but there was no documented transaction from the firm indicating the release of the remaining half for the month. So far this year, Ripple’s escrow execution has only proceeded as expected in January. 

Effectively, Ripple is once again deviating from the customary schedule of the monthly XRP unlock. Meanwhile, Ripple has continually locked back 800 million XRP in escrow despite periodically releasing below 1 billion XRP from escrow.

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