Ripple is set to unlock approximately $1 billion worth of XRP tomorrow, marking the first escrow release of 2026.
The event follows the company’s long-standing, pre-scheduled supply mechanism and is closely monitored by investors, despite being a routine and well-telegraphed occurrence.
Introduced in 2017, the escrow system was designed to ensure transparency and predictability in XRP’s supply. Each month, up to 1 billion XRP is unlocked from time-locked contracts, but Ripple typically uses only a portion for operations, ecosystem growth, and liquidity, while returning most of the tokens to escrow under new locks.
Historically, Ripple has relocked about 60% to 80% of each release, or roughly 600 million to 800 million XRP. As a result, only an estimated 200 million to 400 million XRP is usually available outside escrow, limiting the immediate impact on circulating supply.
Because the bulk of the unlocked XRP is usually relocked, the headline figure often overstates the true market effect. As a result, the XRP price has historically reacted mutedly to escrow releases.
Impact on XRP price
However, the first unlock of the year can still influence short-term sentiment, especially during periods of low liquidity or broader market uncertainty. This comes at a time when XRP’s price has been weighed down by weak sentiment across the broader cryptocurrency market.
By press time, the token was trading at $1.87, having modestly rallied by nearly 0.4% over the past 24 hours, while gaining almost 1% over the past week.
At the current price, XRP is trading well below its 50-day simple moving average (SMA) of $2.07 and its 200-day SMA of $2.49. This positioning below both short- and long-term moving averages signals continued downward pressure and the potential extension of the downtrend, as the price has yet to reclaim these key resistance levels.
Complementing this, the 14-day relative strength index (RSI) stands at 42.74, remaining in neutral territory. While it does not signal extreme overbought or oversold conditions, the sub-50 reading points to underlying weakness amid broader market uncertainty.
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