- 500 Million XRP has reportedly been unlocked from an unknown address with an additional 500 million speculated to be released.
- XRP price could be in danger as Fox Business Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino discloses that the Ripple ruling could be overturned.
The Ripple Labs‘ monthly XRP distribution strategy has been in full effect since December 2017 as the San Francisco-based blockchain company has consistently released a portion of the asset held in escrow into circulation. This strategy originally demanded that 1 billion XRP be released each month for 55 months.
However, the recurrent relock of a significant portion of such amounts back into escrow has forced the company to extend its final escrow deadline to April 2017. As part of this strategy, a staggering 500 million XRP worth $314.87 million has been unlocked today, April 1, 2024, according to Whale Alert’s data.
Interestingly, today’s release was carried out by an unknown address, unlike the previous ones. This has sparked curiosity within the XRP community in addition to speculations that there could be another 500 million XRP releases soon.
Ripple has over the past few years been called out for becoming unpredictable in its distribution strategy. In February 2024, it was reported that Ripple locked 800 million XRP soon after its 1 billion monthly release. In its first transaction, 500 million XRP tokens ($253 million at that time) were locked away after being transferred from “Ripple 23” to “Ripple 11”. 300 million XRP ($151 million at that time) was involved in the second transfer into the escrow wallet.
XRP Reacts to the Current Development
In response to the 500 million tokens released, the price of XRP recorded an uptick of $0.77 in 24 hours to trade at $0.6274, however, the asset had declined at press time to trade at $0.614459 after losing 2.5% of its value in the last hour.
The reason for XRP flipping from bullish to bearish in just a few hours has been linked to the 0.11% decrease in its open interest. On top of that, its volume dropped by 36%. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) of the asset was positioned at 51 a few hours ago, indicating that XRP had neither been overbought nor oversold. However, its 5 minutes RSI had dropped to 40 at press time with the Trend Mean also confirming a neutral sentiment at 37.
According to analysts, XRP could fall to as low as $0.573 if buyers fail to seize control from sellers at the current price. Intriguingly, the price could target a crucial resistance level at $0.6765 once bulls secure control.
XRP’s next price move would largely depend on the outcome of the ongoing legal showdown between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Fox Business Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino, the Ripple ruling could be overturned following Judge Katherine Polk Failla’s decision in the Coinbase vs SEC case. When this happens, the price of XRP could take a deep fall as witnessed in 2020.
However, analyst JayDee believes that there could be a 650-fold increase for the asset as formerly published by Crypto News Flash.
