Ripple locked 700 million XRP in escrow before the scheduled monthly release of 1 billion XRP on August 1, keeping the net increase in circulating supply at 300 million tokens.
The move reversed Ripple’s usual practice, as the company locked the tokens before the monthly escrow release, not after.
Two escrow transactions, covering 200 million XRP and 500 million XRP, were completed ahead of the unlock, according to the latest XRPSCAN data.
The escrow system was introduced in December 2017, locking 55 billion XRP into time-based contracts that release 1 billion tokens on the first day of each month. More than 32 billion XRP remains locked, while roughly 62.5 billion tokens are currently in circulation.
How much XRP did Ripple unlock?
As the same data shows, the monthly release was then executed in three transactions of 500 million, 300 million, and 200 million XRP, worth roughly $1.08 billion at the time.
Based on pure numbers, Ripple has continued its usual 2026 practice of consistently returning 700 million XRP to escrow every month, leaving a net addition of around 300 million XRP, or about 0.48% of the circulating supply. Only the order of the transactions was reversed.
Unsurprisingly, given the historical data, the latest release had little impact on XRP price. The cryptocurrency briefly fell to around $1.04 on August 1 before recovering to about $1.07 at press time, August 3.
However, the market traders are leaning bearish on XRP for August, with only a small portion of traders expecting the asset to make a decisive move upward.
What’s more, the cautious outlook persists despite improving fundamentals. Investors are awaiting greater regulatory clarity around the proposed U.S. CLARITY Act, while XRP-focused ETFs attracted $15 million in weekly net inflows.
Featured image via Shutterstock
