Opening the Floodgate: 1 Billion XRP bring August Crypto Unlock to $1.5B

The crypto market will see a large token unlock in August with Ripple unlocking 1 billion XRP on the first day of the month.

Ripple, the company behind the XRP Ledger blockchain and its native XRP token, has consistently unlocked up to 1 billion tokens on the first day of each month since 2017. They use several leading escrow wallets, including Ripple (24) and Ripple (25), to evenly distribute the monthly unlocks.

Ripple May Relock Bulk of the XRP Release

However, Ripple may relock a large portion of the newly released XRP. In June, Ripple relocked 800 million token from its initial unlock of 1 billion tokens. Nevertheless, the company made moves to sell around 300 million XRP, valued at $182 million at the time, according to data from TradingView.

While up to 1 billion tokens are unlocked at the beginning of each month, the actual amount released into circulation is likely much less due to a re-escrow process, as explained in a 2017 blog post by XRP Ledger.

Other significant unlocks in August include those from layer-1 network Avalanche and cross-chain bridging platform Wormhole, which will release a combined $449 million worth of tokens.

On August 3rd, Wormhole will unlock 33.3% of its circulating supply, which amounts to 600 million Wormhole (W) tokens with a current market value of $180.5 million. This follows its long-awaited airdrop launch on April 4th.

Tokens unlocking on August 1st

On August 1st, in addition to XRP, three other projects – layer-1 network Sui, decentralized exchange dYdX, and “universal” blockchain ZetaChain – will release significant portions of their token supplies. Sui will release 64 million tokens, which will be 56% of its circulating supply valued at $50 million. 

DYDX will release 8.33 million tokens, equivalent to 3.65% of its circulating supply, with a value of nearly $11 million. 

Notably, the tokens will be unlocked for three groups: investors, founders, staff, and future employees. ZetaChain will release nearly 18.9% of its circulating supply, which amounts to 53.9 million tokens valued at around $34.5 million. This release follows its launch in February.