Key Notes
- Onchain data shows that payments firm Ripple Labs has locked about 400 million XRP in escrow.
- An initial 500 million XRP was unlocked and sent to the company in two tranches of 300 million and 200 million XRP.
- The XRP Ledger officially launched its XRPL EVM prior to this escrow deal.
Crypto analytics platform Whale Alert recently spotted that payment firm Ripple Labs has locked about 400 million XRP XRP $2.17 24h volatility: 1.1% Market cap: $128.29 B Vol. 24h: $2.53 B in escrow. According to the current price of the Ripple-associated coin, these locked assets were worth approximately $876 million. However, an unusual pattern has also been spotted in the firm’s escrow schedule.
Ripple Escrow Token Unlock and Lock Process
For the last eight years, Ripple Labs has traditionally released 1 billion XRP coins from escrow every month. As part of its monthly routine rebalancing campaign, the company also unlocks XRP in escrow. At the beginning of 2025, the entire process went through an overhaul. Instead of the traditional direct schedule, Ripple began performing internal relocations before actual unlocks.
In March, Ripple did not create a new escrow from unlocked tokens but from its XRP holdings, signaling an unusual move. Similarly, this trend was observed in other months .
This July, the firm unlocked 500 million XRP as part of this routine, and thereafter, these digital assets were sent to the company in two tranches of 300 million and 200 million XRP.
🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 500,000,000 #XRP (1,088,449,301 USD) unlocked from escrow at #Ripple
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) July 1, 2025
There is a high likelihood that the 300 million XRP transfer is queued for On-demand Liquidity (ODL) operations, exchange-traded products (ETPs), and even strategic partnerships. In the early hours of July 2, a third escrow unlock of 300 million XRP was also spotted. Although it seems to have failed, it suggests that there are still some missing parts of the escrow process.
As a result, the broader cryptocurrency market is expecting more updates to emerge soon, which will help address the identified gaps.
Additionally, Ripple deviated from its usual schedule by releasing $2.2 billion in XRP on June 4, with 670 million XRP locked back into escrow during the same month. Ordinarily, such transactions are performed on the first day of a new month, but not in this case.
Ripple does not technically hold 38 billion tokens in escrow. Smart contracts manage these funds, but a recent market report by the blockchain payments firm noted that it holds up to 5 billion XRP tokens.
Ripple Launches XRPL EVM Sidechain on Mainnet
In other XRP-related news, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) officially launched its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible sidechain on mainnet. This development marked a significant milestone in the network’s advancement.
The XRPL EVM Sidechain was developed in collaboration with Ripple, Peersyst, and Axelar.
It brings full Ethereum smart contract capabilities to the XRP ecosystem for the first time. One of its top features is that it enables the seamless deployment of Decentralized Applications (dApps) and protocols within the XRP Ledger.
With this development, market observers expected the XRP price to gain a head start, which it did initially. On the day of the XRPL EVM Sidechain announcement, the cost of this crypto hovered around $2.20 but has now registered a mild drop.
At press time, XRP was trading at $2.19, following a 0.87% dip over the last 24 hours.
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