The post Ripple Set to Unlock 1b XRP on Jan. 1 as Altcoin Season Nears appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

On January 1, 2025, Ripple will unlock more than $2 billion worth of XRP from an escrow system on the XRP Ledger blockchain. The tokens are set to hit the market in three transactions of 200 million, 300 million, and 500 million XRP. The clock for the three escrows will tick on the first minutes of 2025, freeing 1 billion XRP tokens in addition to the 57.2 billion currently in circulation. The January release represents 2.63% of the total 38 billion of XRP that is still locked in Ripple’s escrow accounts. To be specific, Ripple (24) address will unlock 200 and 300 million XRP that were locked in the escrow on December 1, 2024, and January 1, 2021, respectively. Then, Ripple (25) will release 500 million XRP that were locked on January 1, 2021. These will be the last transactions from Ripple (24) and (25), although there are numerous escrows held by other Ripple-controlled addresses.  Image: XRPSCAN Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, which create new tokens “on the go” as a reward for miners/validators that keep the blockchain safe, Ripple pre-mined the entire supply of 100 billion XRP at the very inception of the network. In 2017, 55 billion XRP were locked in an escrow system hardcoded to release 1 billion XRP each month to ensure gradual and controlled distribution.  The scheduled unlocks help Ripple fund its operations, invest in ecosystem development, and provide liquidity for its payment solutions. While the real amount of XRP that actually enters circulation every month is often lower than 1 billion due to the company re-locking a portion of tokens into a new escrow, this nevertheless creates a significant amount of selling pressure. With Ripple currently trading above the coveted $2 mark, it remains an open question whether XRP will see a proportional demand increase…

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Filed under: News - @ December 25, 2024 10:54 pm