Ripple just unlocked $1 billion XRP worth $256 million from escrow.
The movement makes the funds available for the company to sell to crypto exchanges, institutions and other third parties.
Ripple owns more than half of all XRP in existence and created the escrow account in May of 2017 to help manage its holdings.
The company placed $55 billion in escrow. It releases a portion each month in order to sell some of its holdings over-the-counter (OTC).
🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 1,000,000,000 #XRP (256,266,369 USD) unlocked from escrow at Ripple Escrow wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) October 1, 2019
At the end of the month, Ripple will move whatever portion it does not sell back into escrow.
In the second quarter of this year, ending June 30, Ripple reported selling $251.51 million in XRP.
The company promised to sell significantly less XRP in the third quarter of this year, which just came to a close.
According to Whale Alert, which tracks the largest transactions for a variety of crypto assets, Ripple sold at least 99,906,407 XRP worth about $24.1 million in the last three months.
Since 2016, Ripple has reported a total of $1.14 billion in XRP sales, according to numbers compiled by The Block. Of that total, 64% was sold to institutions and 36% was sold to crypto exchanges.
Ripple says it uses the proceeds to fund its business and power its fundraising arm Xpring, which invests in companies building on XRP and blockchain technology.
Ripple recently faced a backlash from a number of XRP investors who are asking the company to stop selling its holdings. The company denies that its sales have any impact on the price of XRP.
