The release of XRP tokens locked in escrows is likely to continue for more than two decades. This is the observation of the escrow tracker at XRPArcade, a publication dedicated mainly to XRP.
Ripple has a gargantuan XRP hoard which they locked up in a series of escrows in late 2017 and planned to release the funds every month over a period of 55 months. However, it appears that it will take more than 55 months for the San Fransisco-based payment firm to sell all the XRP in escrows.
Ripple’s Escrow Will Take More Than Two Decades To Run Out
Ripple’s massive XRP store and its monthly sales have long been a hot-button issue in the crypto world with many arguing that this makes XRP highly centralized. Since locking 55 billion in different escrows back in 2017, the firm releases 1 billion XRP coins every month.
Despite the XRP community complaining about these periodic sales hampering the growth of the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ripple has continued unlocking a billion tokens every month with the leftover tokens being transferred to a new escrow.
Per XRPArcade, Ripple sells roughly 196 million XRP every month. Approximately 5.5 billion XRP has been released from the escrows so far since Ripple started the scheduled escrow releases.
If Ripple continues with the same rate, it will take at least 252 months (basically 21 years) for the last escrow to finish, XRPArcade noted.
Despite Ripple stating that it has significantly reduced its quarterly sales, it did little to help XRP recover from the crypto abyss. As ZyCrypto reported earlier, XRP lagged behind in the first quarter of 2020. At the moment, XRP is down by more than 94% from the all-time high posted in early 2018.
To make matters worse, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed earlier this year that the blockchain payments startup “would not be profitable or cash flow positive without selling XRP”
Ripple will be releasing the XRP market report for Q1 2020 later this month which will reveal how much XRP was sold during that quarter. Be that as it may, the sales are likely to continue for the next twenty-plus years.
