Ripple, a prominent player in the world of cryptocurrencies, is making headlines again as it prepares to sell 100 million XRP tokens from its reserves. This move comes after Ripple had previously locked up 200 million XRP tokens, worth approximately $112 million, following the unlocking of 1 billion tokens in January. According to blockchain data, the company began its monthly reserve sale on January 7th.
The sale follows a similar pattern to last year, commencing with a transaction worth $56 million, involving 100 million XRP tokens. Ripple, known as "Ripple Treasury," sent the tokens to the address "rP4X2...sKxv3." With 82.3 million XRP retained, this address then forwarded 17.7 million to "rhWt2...E32hk." The balance of the first wallet now exceeds $52 million.
Subsequently, rhWt2 transferred 17.7 million XRP to r4wf7...h4Rzn, an address previously used as an intermediate account for distributing funds to centralized exchanges.
On January 8th, r4wf7 moved a total of 45.72 million XRP to four well-known exchange addresses. Bitstamp received 26.60 million, Bitso got 12.10 million, Independent Reserves received 1.4 million, and BTC Markets obtained 5.3 million. Interestingly, an unknown address received 320,000 tokens.
This intermediate address also received 28.02 million XRP from "r4H6G...QXNMT" before the 17.7 million XRP from Ripple were redirected.
Meanwhile, 100 million liquid XRP tokens still reside in Ripple's treasury, with 82.3 million already in circulation. These tokens could potentially exert pressure on the XRP price at any given moment.