XRP was one of the best-performing digital assets last year. While XRP spent most of the year trading quite flatly, the wider market rally that began in November propelled the token to a 233% gain for the year.
Since the start of 2025, prices have increased by 21.47% — at press time, XRP was changing hands at $2.57.
Beyond its appeal as a speculative investment, XRP’s utility as a cross-border payment solution has also contributed to making it the third-largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market capitalization, which currently stands at approximately $147 billion.
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While utility does play a role in determining the price of a cryptocurrency, measuring the exact effect is a tall order. Thankfully, the laws of supply and demand still apply to cryptocurrencies — and the interplay of these two factors, often referred to as ‘tokenomics’, provides a much better level of insight into how price action could unfold going forward.
XRP’s highest market capitalization, roughly $154.84 billion, was reached on December 3, 2024 — marking the first time that the digital asset surpassed its January 6, 2018 peak market cap of $131.65 billion. At the time of the prior peak, only 38.72 billion XRP was circulating — resulting in an all-time high (ATH) price of $3.40.
Currently, XRP’s circulating supply amounts to 57.49 billion tokens — here is how Ripple Labs’s ongoing escrow schedule could impact the price of XRP in the future.
Ripple Labs’ escrow system and XRP inflation
At present, some 42.51 billion XRP have yet to be unlocked. Ripple Labs unlocks 1 billion XRP each month — however, it can decide to re-lock any amount for the purpose of a future escrow.
In fact, Ripple Labs has done exactly that with the majority of the unlocked supply on many occasions — most recently in January, when it decided to re-lock 700 million units and dump the remaining 300 million.
In the worst-case scenario, assuming that Ripple decides not to relock any amount of XRP going forward, per the escrow schedule, it would take approximately three and a half years for the rest of the token’s supply to be unlocked.
This would result in a 20.87% annual inflation in the first year, followed by a 17.27%, 14,73%, and 6.96% annual inflation in the following years.
Once that is finished, the entire supply would be unlocked, resulting in a fully diluted market cap of $257 billion, considering current prices. This increase in supply would lead XRP prices to drop to $1.55 — equating to a 39.75% loss compared to the current price of asset.
Featured image via Shutterstock
