Ripple, the company holding the largest reserves of XRP, has sold 150 million tokens on May 13 in a $75 million sale that represents around 0.25% of XRP’s total market capitalization, currently around $28 billion.
The sale comes after Ripple released 1 billion XRP in the beginning of the month, with these tokens originally being locked in monthly escrows until 2027. Ripple allocated 200 million to its treasury account and placed the remaining 800 million in new escrows.
The sale was executed through Ripple’s treasury account, labeled “Ripple (1),” on the XRP Ledger explorer XRPScan, as first reported by Finbold, which transferred tokens to an unlabeled account, “rP4X2…sKxv3.”
This process effectively introduced new XRP into circulation, potentially adding inflationary pressure and adding to XRP’s annual inflation rate above the 4% mark. After Ripple’s release the destination account kept 50 million XRP and sent 100 million tokens to an address associated with its sales on the market.
If this pattern holds true, the additional 150 million XRP could create downward pressure on the price of XRP in the spot market. XRP is at the time of writing trading at $0.5 per token after dropping around 5% over the past week amid a wider cryptocurrency market correction.
As CryptoGlobe reported a cryptocurrency analyst has recently suggested the cryptocurrency’s price could be set for a significant upswing, pointing to a symmetrical triangle on the cryptocurrency’s weekly chart, from which XRP could soon break out of.
The price of XRP has been trapped within this triangle for several years, reflecting a potential tug-of-war between buyers and sellers. A successful breakout, Carter said, would see XRP move upward significantly.
Should a breakout from the symmetrical triangle materialize, Carter projects an initial surge towards $0.93, a level XRP briefly touched in July 2023 following a positive development in the ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
However, Carter believes XRP will surpass this resistance level and reach a more ambitious mid-term target of $1.68, representing a staggering increase of over 200% from its current price level.
Featured image via Unsplash.
