The short version
- XRP escrow unlock: two Ripple escrows release 1 billion XRP (about $1.3 billion) at 00:00 UTC on November 1, leaving 31.4 billion XRP locked until 2029.
- Ripple has locked 700 million straight back up after almost every monthly release since January 2025, so about 300 million ($390 million) usually stays out, under a third of one day’s trading volume.
- The crew is watching how much Ripple re-locks on Sunday, and whether XRP holds $1.25; past unlock weeks looked like any other week this year.
The XRP escrow opens again in a week, and the headline number sounds bigger than it is. At 00:00 UTC on November 1, two of Ripple’s time-locked accounts release 500 million XRP each, 1 billion XRP in total, or about $1.3 billion at today’s price.
XRP trades at $1.30 at the time of writing, down 15% in 30 days and 64% below its $3.65 record from July 2025. A billion coins hitting a falling market looks like bad timing. But if November follows the last 22 months, 700 million of that billion is back under lock within a day. So how does the escrow work, where does the rest go, and has the unlock ever moved the price?
This is how the last one ended, about 12 hours after the unlock:
🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 🔒 400,000,000 $XRP (597,516,412 USD) locked in escrow at #Ripple
whale-alert.io/tx/ripple/EC3B…
How Does the XRP Escrow Work?
The XRP escrow is a lock on the XRP Ledger itself: coins sit in an escrow object that nobody can move until a set date. Ripple set it up in 2017 with 55 billion of its own XRP, split into 55 contracts of 1 billion each, one expiring on the first day of every month.
The rule that matters came with it. Whatever Ripple doesn’t use from a monthly release goes back into a new escrow at the end of the line. That’s why a schedule that should have run out in 2022 is still going.
We pulled every Ripple escrow from the ledger this morning. The company still has 31.4 billion XRP locked, spread over 98 escrows in eight accounts and 32 monthly dates. November 1 and December 1 hold 1 billion each, and the last date in the queue is June 1, 2029, with 400 million so far. The 31.4 billion is about 31% of XRP’s 100 billion supply and worth about $41 billion.
Sponsored · Affiliate link
Save 20% on fees trading on WEEX
Base Camp may earn a commission if you sign up. It never affects what we write.
Why Does 70% of the XRP Escrow Go Back?
Because Ripple only keeps what it plans to use, and for almost two years that has been 300 million a month. The other 700 million goes straight back under lock. On the ledger, Ripple re-locked 700 million XRP every month from January 2025 to October 2026; the only exception was June 2025, at 670 million.
October 1 shows how it plays out. The four escrows of 400, 300, 200 and 100 million XRP were finished two seconds after midnight UTC. At about 11:52 UTC, Ripple put 300 million and 400 million back into two new escrows, dated May 1 and June 1, 2029. Here’s the last year in one table:
| Last 12 unlocks | XRP |
|---|---|
| Released, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026 | 12 billion |
| Locked back up | 8.4 billion |
| Kept by Ripple | 3.6 billion |
| Kept in a typical month | 300 million |
Kept doesn’t mean sold. The 300 million moves into Ripple’s own wallets, and what happens next isn’t public anymore. Ripple stopped its quarterly XRP Markets Report after the first quarter of 2025, the report that used to break down its XRP sales.
For scale, 300 million XRP is about $390 million, roughly 0.5% of the 63.4 billion XRP already in circulation. That’s less than a third of one day’s trading volume, $1.35 billion over the last 24 hours. If November repeats the pattern, that’s the real number to watch, not the billion.
DISCOVER: Token unlock in the Base Camp glossary
Has the XRP Escrow Unlock Moved the Price Before?
Not in any way that stands out from a normal week. We checked XRP on Binance around each of the last 12 XRP unlock dates, from the open at 00:00 UTC on the 1st to the close on the 7th.
XRP rose in 5 of those 12 weeks and fell in 7. The median move was -2.7%. That sounds bearish until you compare it with every other 7-day stretch of the same year: their median was -2.1%, and only 37% of them ended higher. XRP lost almost half its price over those 12 months, so most weeks were red, unlock or not.
The extremes tell the same story. The best unlock week was January 2026, up 17.5%. The worst were February and June 2026, both down more than 13%, in weeks when Bitcoin itself fell 12% and 14%. Unlock day itself is usually flat, with a median move of -0.2% from the open on the 1st to that day’s close.
If anything, the nerves show up early. XRP fell in 10 of the 12 weeks before an unlock, with a median of -3.3%. That fits traders selling ahead of the headline rather than Ripple selling into it.
XRP Price Analysis: What Matters Into November 1?
For the XRP price, holding $1.25 matters most. XRP has bounced from that area three times since mid-September: $1.2468 on September 16, $1.2562 on October 18 and $1.2546 on Saturday.
Above, the 50-day and 200-day EMAs sit together at about $1.37, and the 50-day slipped under the 200-day on October 22. Both are flat, so the trend has no direction yet. Then $1.40, the October 21 high that turned XRP back.
In the bull case, a daily close above $1.40 puts XRP back over both EMAs and shows the unlock was priced in.
In the base case, XRP stays between $1.25 and $1.37 through the unlock and the Fed meeting on October 28.
In the bear case, a daily close below $1.25 opens the way to the August range near $1.05.
EXPLORE: XRP Ledger Upgrade Slips to November 4 After a Two-Hour Vote Dip
The billion is the headline. The number to check on Sunday is the second one: how much Ripple locks back up, usually later the same day, sometimes the next. Another 700 million means the same 300 million month as the last two years. Anything less means Ripple kept more than usual, and that would be worth a closer look.
