Popular payment based crypto company, Ripple, which controls the fourth most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recently unlocked 1 billion XRP, worth about $177.6 million, from an escrow account.
Whale Alert monitored this movement, which occurred in two different 500 million XRP transactions, in real-time.
🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 500,000,000 #XRP (88,240,341 USD) unlocked from escrow at Ripple Escrow wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) July 1, 2020
Ripple owns more than half of the total supply of XRP. In late 2017, the company vowed not to sell all of its tokens (XRP) at once, keeping up to 55 billion XRP in protected escrow accounts.
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It then set up a plan to release about 1,000,000,000 XRP monthly for sale to be used as funding for its operations, and to invest in startups of interest, with the rest kept back in the escrow accounts.
Quick fact: Ripple (XRP) plays dual roles as a payment platform and a currency. The platform is an open-source platform that is created to allow quick and cheap transactions.
Unlike its crypto rival, Bitcoin, which was never intended to be a simple payment system, Ripple has gained the attention of major global banks, like Standard Chartered, and Barclays for international transactions worldwide.
Recall that a few months ago, the U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau looked excited about Ripple as a tool for bringing simplicity and openness to the financial industry. It said:
“To the degree banks and credit unions increase their reliance on closed network payment systems for sending remittance transfers and other cross-border money transfers, the Bureau notes that this could result in greater standardization and ease by which sending institutions can know exact covered third-party fees and exchange rates.
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“The Bureau also believes that expanded adoption of SWIFT’s GPI product or Ripple’s suite of products could similarly allow banks and credit unions to know the exact final amount that recipients of remittance transfers will receive before they are sent.”