Ripple currently controls a staggering amount of XRP, and now questions from market experts are mounting over whether the crypto payments company may be forced to sell 25% of its 45 billion token holdings. Analysts suggest that a possible selloff could have major implications. At the same time, they question the pathways through which Ripple could sell its holdings and who the potential buyers might be.
Ripple To Face Pressure To Sell 25% Of XRP Holdings
Ripple may soon need to drastically reduce more than half of its substantial XRP reserves as regulatory discussions over the proposed CLARITY Act intensify. In a recent post on X, market expert Crypto Sensei shared a video, drawing attention to a provision in the CLARITY Act that would prevent any company from controlling more than 20% of a blockchain’s native asset’s total supply.
Currently, Ripple owns 45 billion XRP, split between escrow and direct reserve, representing 45% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply of 100 billion tokens. This indicates that the company controls nearly half of the total XRP supply—a level of concentration that typically runs counter to the decentralization narrative of crypto and blockchain technology.
Crypto Sensei suggests that US lawmakers are seemingly focused on preventing excessive accumulation of supply, and Ripple’s holdings stand out as one of the clearest examples of a single entity controlling a large portion of a network’s token. According to the analyst, if the CLARITY Act is implemented in 2026, Ripple may need to sell at least 25% of its holdings to comply with the legislation.
A reduction of this magnitude would lower the crypto company’s XRP reserves to 20 billion tokens, or 20% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply. At the current price of $2.0 per token, this would amount to roughly $40 billion. Notably, such a sell-off would likely require coordination with liquidity providers and partnering institutions to avoid unnecessary market disruption.
Potential Selling Paths And Institutional Speculation
In his X video, Crypto Sensei outlined several potential paths Ripple could take to reduce its substantial XRP reserves. One option is to sell the rights to future escrow releases instead of the tokens themselves. Another involves selling the accounts into which the escrowed XRP completes while preventing the tokens from circulating.
According to the market expert, these possibilities have sparked widespread speculation that major financial players, such as BlackRock, could already be involved or poised to purchase future XRP escrow rights. The idea continues to circulate because it would allow institutions to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without immediately affecting the circulating supply.
Crypto Sensei also notes that Ripple locks about 700 million XRP in escrow each month, raising questions about whether these transfers may represent sales. The analyst argues that if sales were occurring, the on-chain trail would clearly show tokens moving to buyers’ wallets, but the data does not reflect this. He highlighted that the current evidence points to a far more controlled internal process rather than large-scale institutional distributions.
