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This is Ripple’s second planned monthly release as part of its ongoing escrow program.
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The majority of the 1 billion XRP tokens sent in January was returned to escrow (700 millions tokens).
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In the past, unlocking a product has not caused a major price drop.
Ripple Labs will unlock another 1 billion dollars of XRP on February 1, 2026. This is the second monthly release planned under its ongoing escrow program, which was set up in 2017 to bring predictability to XRP’s circulating supply.
Ripple put 55 billion XRP in escrow many years ago. They structured them into 50 monthly contracts, each of which is 1 billion XRP, and programmed them to unlock the first day of every month. Ripple decides the amount to release each time a batch is unlocked, and often puts most of it back into escrow in order to avoid flooding the market.
This method is not the same as Bitcoin’s algorithm-driven, fixed release schedule. Ripple is able to adjust the release schedule to meet its business needs while maintaining control.
Ripple has followed this routine in recent months, putting 60% to 80% back into escrow for each monthly release, meaning that only a small amount of the total is released.
As an example, the majority of the 1 billion XRP in January was sent back to escrow (700 millions tokens), so that the actual amount added on the market was much smaller than announced. In February, the same thing is expected. While the headline figure is 1 billion, it’s likely that most of it will be locked away again.
Price Impact on XRP
While unlocking so many XRP sounds like a lot of tokens, history shows that it doesn’t cause a price crash as most of these tokens are locked again. The price changes around these dates are often more related to the mood of the cryptomarket.
XRP has had a shaky January. It registered some notable gains in the beginning of the year, before falling.
Spot XRP ETFs continue to see significant inflows. Last week, spot ETFs received a net investment amounting to $56 million. Grayscale XRP (GXRP), which brought in a net of $23.75 millions, was the largest weekly investment.
XRP is currently trading below $2. This is a decrease of approximately 4% in the last 24 hour.
Related: Ripple and UC Berkeley Launch Blockchain Accelerator Dedicated to XRP Ledger Projects
