XRP Advocate Says Ripple Should Have Distributed More Escrowed XRP
Ripple’s escrow made up to 1 billion XRP available each month, with unused tokens eligible to be locked again. XRP advocate and attorney Bill Morgan says Ripple should instead have distributed the full monthly amount, accepting a faster increase in available supply to put an end to the recurring debate over the escrow balance.
- Monthly releases set a ceiling, not a sales commitment.
- Ripple’s rules let it re-lock unused XRP.
- Faster distribution might have reduced the escrow overhang, but its price effects are unknowable.
What Ripple’s escrow was designed to do
On December 8, 2017, Ripple announced that it had placed 55 billion XRP into 55 escrow contracts, each holding 1 billion XRP. The contracts were set to expire monthly. Ripple said the arrangement would make future XRP supply more predictable and let observers calculate the maximum amount that could become available on schedule.
That maximum did not mean Ripple promised to sell or distribute 1 billion XRP every month. Ripple said unused tokens would be placed “at the back of the escrow rotation.” For example, if 500 million XRP remained unused after a release, that amount would be locked again.
The distinction matters. An escrow release makes tokens available under the schedule. It does not show that they were sold, transferred to a particular recipient or added to circulating supply. Those are separate events, and the release alone does not tell us what happened next.
Morgan’s case for distributing more
Morgan’s criticism is that Ripple could have permanently distributed the full amount made available each month instead of re-locking the unused tokens. That approach would have run down the original escrow faster, leaving less XRP in that pool as a potential future supply overhang.
There’s a reasonable communications argument here. Ripple designed the system to make releases predictable, but repeatedly re-locking unused XRP kept public attention on how much remained in escrow and what Ripple might do with it. A transparent schedule can reduce uncertainty without putting an end to the arguments it creates.
But “distribute” does not necessarily mean “sell on exchanges.” XRP could have gone to institutional purchasers, ecosystem programs or other recipients. Even if Ripple had stopped re-locking each monthly release, the market impact would have depended on where the tokens went, whether recipients sold them and how much demand could absorb the additional supply.
What the 2018 figures show
Ripple’s Q3 2018 report shows why release totals and sales figures should not be treated as the same thing. The company said 3 billion XRP was released from escrow during the quarter, 2.6 billion was returned to escrow, and the remaining 400 million was used in various ways to support the XRP ecosystem.
Ripple separately reported $163.33 million in XRP sales during Q3: $65.27 million in programmatic sales and $98.06 million in institutional direct sales through XRP II, LLC. The report does not establish that those sales came from the 400 million XRP not returned to escrow. It also does not say that all 400 million was sold.
That distinction is central to Morgan’s proposal. Permanently distributing an unlocked amount would have kept it from being re-escrowed, but would not tell us whether the XRP was sold, held or used for a particular purpose.
Key questions about Ripple’s XRP escrow
-
Did Ripple promise to sell 1 billion XRP every month?
No. Up to 1 billion XRP became available each month, and Ripple’s announced policy allowed unused tokens to be placed in new escrow contracts.
-
Why does Morgan think Ripple should have distributed more?
He argues that permanently distributing the monthly releases would have reduced the escrow balance sooner and weakened a recurring source of criticism about Ripple-controlled future supply.
-
Would faster distribution have raised or lowered XRP’s price?
The available figures can’t answer that. More XRP might have reached the market earlier, but the effect would have depended on how Ripple distributed it and how buyers absorbed any resulting supply.
Morgan’s proposal is a counterfactual, not a price forecast. Distributing the full monthly allowance could have cleared this escrow sooner, but that does not prove XRP’s price would have been higher or lower. The criticism is narrower: re-locking unused tokens preserved the schedule while keeping the escrow debate alive.
