Ripple’s Massive XRP Holdings: What You Need to Know

Ripple's latest quarterly report reveals that the company currently holds 4.682 billion XRP tokens in its wallets.

Additionally, there are 39.5 billion XRP tokens locked in on-ledger escrow. Ripple implemented this escrow system in 2017, initially locking 55 billion tokens, with a billion tokens being released each month according to a set schedule. The company also occasionally re-locks some of these newly released tokens.

Earlier this year, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz mentioned the possibility of “blackholing” escrow tokens, a method that could render them unusable. However, this remains unlikely. Schwartz noted that Ripple initially planned to use the tokens for giveaways but shifted strategies after XRP’s market price increased.

The company explored other options, such as sales with lockups and using XRP to incentivize partners, but found these strategies similar to selling XRP directly.

The recent report highlights that XRP experienced significant volatility in the second quarter, with realized volatility above 90% before decreasing to 45% later in the quarter.

Additionally, on-chain activity on the XRP Ledger dropped compared to the previous quarter. Ripple also announced the name of its stablecoin and continued its ongoing legal battle with the SEC.