Here’s Why Ripple Escrow Unlocked 400,000,000 XRP Outside the Monthly Schedule

The freshly unlocked 400 million XRP from the Ripple escrow fulfills an earlier failed transaction, completing the scheduled one billion release as intended.

The crypto community was caught off guard when Ripple unexpectedly released a significant amount of XRP from its escrow service, deviating from the usual monthly schedule set for the first of each month.

Whale Alert called attention to development from Ripple in a recent post on X. According to the update, Ripple’s escrow released 400,000,000 XRP valued at $217,409,122 on Sunday, February 25, at 03:26:31 UTC.

🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 🔓 400,000,000 #XRP (217,409,122 USD) unlocked from escrow at #Ripplehttps://t.co/nfzy5ulSuA

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 25, 2024

This development sparked intrigue in the community as Ripple’s monthly unlock is scheduled to automatically unlock on the first day of each month.

“Aren’t they a week early for this,” a crypto enthusiast curiously asked. Some even contested the authenticity of the unlock due to the odd timing. “False! This is not an escrow unlock,” another X user remarked.

However, data from XRP blockchain explorers affirmed the escrow execution indeed took place.

Why Ripple Unlocked 400M XRP Now

As previously reported by The Crypto Basic, Ripple had only unlocked 600 million XRP on February 1. The release occurred in two transactions: one for 100 million XRP and the other for 500 million XRP.

Meanwhile, the third transaction, intended to complete the February escrow release to one billion XRP as expected, failed.

Ripple February Escrow unlock | Bithomp

The failure error indicated that the transaction referenced a PayChannel ledger object that does not exist. Additionally, it mentioned that another EscrowFinish transaction might have already executed the held payment.

Another possibility is that the destination account has a setting disallowing XRP transactions, preventing it from being the destination for the particular transaction.

Essentially, the recently-released 400 million XRP from escrow serves to fulfill the earlier failed transaction, completing the scheduled one billion release as intended.

Meanwhile, despite the lower-than-expected volume release, Ripple proceeded to return 800 million XRP back into escrow on February 2.

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