Blockchain engineer Vincent Van Code has published a revealing analysis of the actual circulating supply of XRP, showing that over 85% of the total 100 billion tokens are locked, lost, or stored in inactive wallets. His findings challenge the common perception of the actual amount of XRP available for use in payments, settlements, and liquidity.

According to Van Code, Ripple controls about 35.9 billion XRP in escrow accounts. Although 1 billion tokens are released each month, the company often locks back nearly 800 million tokens into escrow accounts each time. This limits the actual flow of XRP into the open market.

In addition to escrow tokens, Ripple also holds 4.9 billion XRP outside. These tokens are reserved for strategic initiatives such as acquisitions, incentives, and partnerships. Therefore, they are excluded from the available supply for public or institutional use.

Van Code also estimates that 5 to 8 billion XRP are permanently inaccessible due to lost private keys and old forgotten wallets. Like Bitcoin, XRP also has some inactive tokens that are unlikely to return to the ecosystem.

Inactive Wallets and DeFi Commitments Tighten XRP Liquidity

Institutional investors and early users are said to be holding between 20 to 25 billion XRP. These wallets are mostly inactive, contributing to the current supply scarcity. Such holdings are often long-term and rarely affect daily liquidity.

Furthermore, the rise of decentralized finance on the XRP Ledger is locking even more tokens. Current data from XRPScan shows that over 12 million XRP have been committed to participate in automated market-making pools. This trend is expected to continue as DeFi applications expand across the network.

Considering all factors—the escrow and strategic reserves of Ripple, permanently lost tokens, inactive investor wallets, and DeFi locks—Van Code concludes that only about 12 to 15 billion XRP are actually usable. This number represents only 12% to 15% of the total supply.

In Summary: Van Code's analysis shows that the liquidity supply of XRP is much smaller than commonly thought. As utility demand increases, this limited circulating amount of XRP could lead to significant supply pressure across markets. $XRP