Ripple to Release 1 Billion XRP From Escrow on December 1

Last Monthly Escrow Release of 2026

Supply is set to enter circulation on December 1, when four escrow contracts under Ripple's control become unlockable and add 1 billion XRP to the releasable pool. The round is the final monthly release on Ripple's 2026 calendar, and on-chain lookups list all four contracts with a December 1 availability time, from 9 a.m. Korea time, which is midnight UTC. At the current XRP price of $0.99, the batch is worth roughly $990 million. The October 1 round ran on the same monthly structure, and Ripple repeated the procedure at the start of this month, releasing 1 billion XRP on November 1 across two tranches. The headline figure overstates fresh supply, though. In each of the October and November rounds, Ripple re-locked about 700 million XRP into new timelock contracts, leaving a net 300 million per month outside escrow. The November re-locks went into three new escrow contracts, cutting the on-ledger locked balance by 300 million rather than the headline billion. If the same approach carries into December, around 300 million will stay outside escrow while the remaining 700 million returns under later dates. The exact split follows Ripple's transaction history after the unlock, which the ledger records in real time, and re-escrow is a choice Ripple makes afterward, not a fixed property of the program. Tokens that leave escrow also do not go straight to market. They can sit in Ripple-managed wallet addresses , cover operational spending, provision liquidity or fund ecosystem allocations, and the ledger gives no advance signal on which use applies. That gap between the released amount and the net addition is the figure that matters for circulating supply, and this year's rounds have confirmed it repeatedly. Our XRP escrow releases coverage tracks each monthly round as it lands.

How the XRP Ledger Handles the Unlock

XRP Ledger records mark the four contracts as unlockable from December 1, but availability and movement are separate events. The ledger's own documentation states that once an escrow's time condition is met, a completion transaction is still required to move the assets to the destination account, so the unlockable moment and the actual transfer can land hours apart. Balance checks therefore distinguish three figures: the released amount, the re-escrowed amount and the net change in the locked balance, and only the last one measures circulating supply. The program behind the schedule dates to December 2017, when Ripple's escrow announcement placed 55 billion XRP into time-based contracts, then 55% of the total supply, with the stated aim of making the release timing of its holdings predictable. The design caps each monthly release at 1 billion XRP and lets unused amounts return to escrow with a fresh date assigned to a month that has no scheduled release, which is the mechanism behind the recent re-locks. As of November 14, ledger records show 31.1 billion XRP still locked in contracts under Ripple's control, with 32 monthly releases left on the recorded schedule. The furthest of those sits in July 2029, which puts the December 1 round in proportion: it closes the 2026 calendar, not the program. The next entry is already recorded, with 1 billion XRP set to unlock on January 1, 2027, and a release following every month after that. Because the schedule lives on the ledger itself, these dates and balances are publicly verifiable rather than dependent on company statements. For anyone tracking supply, the count that matters after December 1 is how much of the unlocked 1 billion Ripple moves versus returns, and the ledger will publish that within hours of the availability time.

Supply Meets a Market Below Its Averages

The token trades near $0.99, down about 3% over 24 hours and more than 15% on the week, below its 50 and 200-day moving averages, a setup our XRP technical analysis page follows. Flow indicators add a headwind, with recent US spot XRP ETF outflows totaling $10.42 million. Even the full 1 billion is modest against XRP's market cap , and the net addition looks closer to 300 million if the re-escrow pattern repeats, but any tokens routed toward exchanges would pass through standard order types into books already absorbing selling, where size can add slippage . After December 1 the supply position splits cleanly: whatever Ripple does not return to new timelock contracts stays in circulation, the rest re-enters the schedule with later dates, and 31.1 billion XRP remains waiting behind them.