The Ripple financial technology decacorn published the XRP market quarterly report for the fourth quarter of 2020. Among other things, the document mentioned that Ripple doubled its XRP OTC sales to market participants in the fourth quarter in order to maintain XRP liquidity.
Ripple’s XRP sales doubled in the fourth quarter
In the final quarter of last year, Ripple sold a total of $76.27 million (net purchase price of $45.55 million) to market participants. In the third quarter of 2020, the number of tokens sold by the company reached $35.84 million.
According to the report, these sales and leases are being carried out by the company as part of providing XRP liquidity to certain Ripple partners and RippleNet members so they can improve ODL operations.
33 market participants have taken restrictive measures against XRP
The report also revealed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had taken legal action against Ripple and its board of directors Brad Garlinghouse and former CEO Chris Larsen. The legal actions have proven dire for Ripple with several exchanges delisting XRP.
These include crypto exchanges like Bitstamp, Coinbase, Kraken, and Grayscale, which have closed their Grayscale XRP Trust. However, Coinbase customers can still use their XRP wallet to store coins or withdraw to other platforms or wallets. In total, the report included around 33 of such companies.
Source: Ripple
2.6 billion XRP are in custody
On the first day of each month, Ripple will release one billion XRP tokens from its escrow wallet to use part of it for sales or to pay for its operating costs.
However, they usually get blocked about 80% later. According to the report, Ripple blocked 2.6 billion XRP of custody funds in the fourth quarter of 2020.
“In Q4 2020, three billion XRP were released out of escrow (one billion each month) in line with prior quarters. In total across the quarter, 2.6 billion XRP were returned and subsequently put into new escrow contracts.”
