Ripple, the core developer of XRP Ledger (XRP) and its largest holder, will unlock 1 billion XRP on September 1. This is part of Ripple’s monthly unlocks from the token’s initial distribution and often precedes a price drop.
At current prices, the unlock’s nominal value is $570 million, which will be partially sold in the next few days.
Finbold retrieved data from XRPScan, showing the escrows from ‘Ripple (24)‘ and ‘Ripple (25)‘ that will finish after August 31. Specifically, the former will unlock 500 million XRP in a single transaction, while the latter will unlock 200 million and 300 million XRP in two transactions.
Since May 2024, Ripple has used these two labeled accounts for monthly unlocks. Before that, the company used the ‘Ripple (22)’ and ‘Ripple (23)’ accounts. Over 43 billion XRP are still locked in escrows for unlocks until December 2027.
Ripple’s previous 1 billion XRP unlock activity in August
On August 1, Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP, worth approximately $600 million, by Finbold’s reporting time on July 28. The company then reserved 200 million XRP in its treasury account, re-locking 800 million tokens to November and December 2027.
Interestingly, August was the month when Ripple waited longer than usual to follow up with its monthly sell-off. On August 27, the company sent all the 200 million at once from ‘Ripple (1)‘ to rP4X2hTa7A7udDbE6wczXvPz7XZ63sKxv, as Finbold reported.
This unknown account distributed the tokens that hopped through two other unknown addresses before landing in crypto exchanges. All addresses involved in these transactions have participated in previous Ripple unlocks for many months in a row.
XRP price analysis amid Ripple’s monthly sell-offs
As of this writing, XRP trades at $0.57, down 9.40% year-to-date. Since January 1, 2024, Ripple sold over 2.02 billion XRP from its treasury account, worth around $1.15 billion.
The XRP price experienced losses in four out of the eight months after each unlock, with gains only in February and July – having a neutral performance in the other two months.
Notably, the Ethereum (ETH) community was recently outraged following an Ethereum Foundation $100 million deposit to Kraken in August. The Foundation disclosed the transaction as its yearly budget for gradual sales, which equals Ripple’s monthly sell-offs, as Finbold reported.
XRP investors should closely monitor Ripple’s selling activities as they could brutally impact the token’s price. Nevertheless, the popular cryptocurrency can still perform positively if it faces enough demand.