Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently revealed surprising information about the company’s XRP holdings on Twitter. Ripple has two categories of XRP: the XRP currently available in its wallets, and the XRP held in escrow that gets released on a monthly basis. Ripple doesn’t have access to the escrowed XRP until it’s released.
In response to a tweet, Schwartz discussed the options Ripple has regarding its sizable XRP reserves. Ripple can either continue holding a large amount of XRP like it currently does, or it can work to reduce its holdings over time. Schwartz said there is no third option. He stated that Ripple’s original plan was to decrease its XRP reserves as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t envision any scenario now where that initial idea would be even remotely feasible. Even if it did happen, he doesn’t think it would provide much benefit.
Schwartz explained that the initial method to lower supply was going to be primarily through giveaways. But once XRP had a market price, people spent money gaming the giveaways, so they had to stop. Other attempted options like sales with lockups and using XRP to incentivize partners ended up being essentially equivalent to just selling XRP.
Schwartz remarked that they are over 10 years into their 5 year plan and almost halfway to their destination. In response to questions about the escrow or burning XRP in escrow, he seemed ambivalent about the value of the escrow and dismissive of the idea of burning the escrow supply to positively impact XRP.
