Reasons for Ripple XRP’s 5% Drop in the Morning Hours!

• Ripple’s XRP fell by 5% in the morning hours.
• This decline is based on Ripple’s 55-month Escrow Project.
• Under the project, 1 billion XRP is released into the market every month, but…

There is a serious issue that has been flagged by whale tracking systems after Ripple (XRP) prices dropped by 5% in the morning hours! The reason for this decline was the transfer of 1 billion XRP…

Ripple XRP’s 55-Month Escrow Project

Leading crypto payment company Ripple released a large amount of XRP from its escrow wallet. According to a report by blockchain tracker Whale Alert, Ripple transferred a total of 1 billion XRP tokens worth $513.37 million from its escrow account in the early hours of the day.

According to Whale Alert, this transfer was carried out in three transactions, and Ripple released 500 million XRP worth $271.05 million from an unknown wallet in the first transaction. Then, 200 million XRP and 300 million XRP were released from wallets, respectively, and the total transfer was 1 billion XRP tokens.

Interestingly, since Ripple announced its intention to lock up 55 billion XRP tokens using the escrow feature in 2017, it is not a new or unusual event for Ripple to release 1 billion XRP into the market every month. Ripple Labs announced that 1 billion XRP would be released into the market monthly to encourage investors and keep interest in the token alive. Ripple began implementing its plan in early 2018 and has continued to do so continuously except for a two-month break in October-November 2022.

However, after the release, not all of the 1 billion XRP remains in circulation. A large portion of the newly released tokens are usually returned to the escrow wallet, ranging from 600-700 million XRP, a few days after the release.

Therefore, it is expected that a large portion of the latest XRP release will be withdrawn from circulation in the coming days, perhaps by the end of next week.

Ripple XRP Prices Fell by 5% After Transfers!

It appears that XRP was slightly affected by the release of these 1 billion tokens. Data from Coingecko shows that the altcoin lost 5.1% of its value in the last 24 hours.

XRP is trading at $0.5143 | Source: XRPUSD chart on Tradingview.com

However, when looking at its overall performance, XRP has been one of the most impressive tokens in recent weeks. The altcoin has gained 19.2% in the last week and 32.4% in the last month.

However, due to the ongoing court case between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), XRP remains a hot topic in the crypto space. In 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple for issuing XRP and claimed that the token was an unregistered security.

Over the past two years, there have been many twists and turns in the legal battle between the two sides. The SEC has not lost any crypto case, but there is an increasing positive sentiment among investors that Ripple will likely win the case in a decision expected to be made this month.

At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $0.50, down 1.2% in the last hour. With a market capitalization of $26.27 billion, XRP remains the sixth largest cryptocurrency in the market.