Ripple, the leading crypto payments company, has taken a significant step to boost investor confidence in XRP by locking 800 million XRP in escrow. This action comes shortly after the personal account of Ripple’s chairman, Chris Larsen, was hacked. The locking of the funds was done in two transactions, with the first transaction involving the locking of 500 million XRP and the second transaction involving the locking of 300 million XRP.
Interestingly, while Ripple released XRP from escrow as per its monthly routine, only 600 million XRP were released this time. This is a departure from the usual practice of unlocking 1 billion XRP at the beginning of each month. The 600 million XRP were released in two tranches of 100 million and 500 million XRP, respectively.
Many investors were surprised by this development, as it deviated from the usual process of unlocking and re-locking XRP. However, it can be seen as a move by Ripple to bolster investors’ confidence in the coin. It is worth noting that this decision may have been influenced by the recent security breach on Chris Larsen’s personal account. Hackers gained unauthorized access to Ripple’s wallets and transferred 213 million XRP to various exchanges.
Despite these challenges, XRP has not performed well compared to other cryptocurrencies in recent months. While other coins experienced double-digit gains, XRP lost 18% of its value. Currently trading at around $0.5, XRP has seen a small daily gain of 2.3%, but remains down 8% and 20.4% in the past 14 and 30 days, respectively.