The XRP community is sharply divided over the pace of Ripple’s monthly escrow releases as prominent lawyer Bill Morgan urges the company to accelerate the unlock schedule. Morgan argues that with 32.74 billion XRP still locked and the current pace stretching the full-circulation timeline to roughly nine years, Ripple should release more and relock less each month. “The sooner it is all released from escrow and the circulating supply is 100% the quicker XRP will become the best hard money,” Morgan stated publicly. His push targets the persistent supply overhang that many see as a drag on valuation.
The escrow mechanism, introduced in 2017 with 55 billion XRP locked in on‑ledger contracts, was designed to create transparency and prevent centralized dumps. Yet the monthly cycle—where Ripple takes what it needs for operations and relocks the rest—effectively rolls the timeline forward indefinitely. Morgan’s call is not new, but his framing sharpens the debate: a fixed, fully circulating supply, he contends, would give institutional investors a credible, fundamentals‑only asset.
Ripple’s CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has drawn a firm line. He flatly rejected the idea of burning the escrowed supply, citing Stellar’s token burn as an example that produced only a short‑lived price reaction. “If you’re thinking that will have some positive impact on the price, I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that,” Schwartz wrote, noting XRP’s price tracked XLM’s through the Stellar burn. On accelerating the release, he acknowledged the difficulty of predicting usage, emphasizing that Ripple’s predictable distribution model is a feature for institutional credibility.
The internal debate comes as XRP grapples with a separate weight: the token has shed roughly 50% from its recent highs, and attention is turning to a $785 million stablecoin within Ripple’s ecosystem. Analysts are probing whether the growing stablecoin is siphoning liquidity that might otherwise flow into XRP. When a dollar‑pegged asset on the same network absorbs capital, traders and institutions may favor the stable asset, reducing buy‑side demand for the native token. While correlation does not equal causation, the timing of the stablecoin’s emergence alongside XRP’s sharp decline has prompted token‑specific scrutiny.
On‑chain data points are now in focus. Shifts in the stablecoin’s circulating supply and exchange net flows for XRP will be key in determining whether selling pressure is easing or intensifying. Some market participants argue that stablecoin growth can ultimately attract more overall network activity, benefiting XRP in the long run. For now, the community split on escrow speed and the stablecoin liquidity question leave the token navigating both internal governance tensions and external market headwinds.
