Key Takeaways:
Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP from escrow on June 1 as US spot ETFs posted their strongest month with $118 million in inflows.
The company released the tokens across three on-chain transactions tracked by Whale Alert: 500 million XRP valued at about $666 million, followed by 400 million XRP worth $533 million and 100 million XRP worth $133 million. Of the 100 billion XRP that will ever exist on the XRP Ledger, about 61.85 billion are currently in circulation, leaving roughly 38.15 billion still locked in escrow, according to Binance market data from early June.
Ripple typically re-escrows most of the unlocked supply, keeping only a fraction for operational use. David Schwartz, Ripple's chief technology officer, has said the company voluntarily returns any XRP it does not expect to need, want or use back into the system, a practice that extends the escrow schedule and delays full circulation. Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse has not ruled out burning the remaining escrow, though Schwartz has argued that a large burn would not automatically lift the price, pointing to Stellar's 2019 destruction of 55 billion XLM, which caused only a short-lived spike.
The $118.29 million in May ETF inflows brought cumulative net flows since the products launched in November 2025 to $1.41 billion across five providers. JPMorgan has forecast first-year inflows could reach $4 billion to $8.4 billion if the CLARITY Act, which cleared the Senate Banking Committee, becomes law and classifies XRP as a commodity, unlocking allocations from pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Standard Chartered projects XRP at $2.80 in 2026, rising to $7 in 2027 and $28 by 2030, contingent on the act passing and ETF inflows scaling past $4 billion.
XRP traded near $1.34 on June 2, down about 26% year to date and 63% below its July 2025 cycle high of $3.65, according to CoinGecko data. The token's price has not responded to Ripple's structural wins this year, including $3.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger and RLUSD reaching a $1.72 billion market cap. The divergence between business growth and token price leaves XRP's post-2026 outlook dependent on whether the 60% of RippleNet partners still on messaging rails convert to On-Demand Liquidity, which directly uses XRP for settlement.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
