One of the main factors behind the stagnant XRP price is its limited and centralized supply. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, XRP is not mined. At the time of its creation, 100 billion tokens were issued, all at once. No more will be generated. This implies an immutable supply.
Ripple Labs initially retained 80% of these tokens. Today, it is estimated that they still control 42%: approximately 35% in escrow accounts and 7% in their own wallets. Each month, 1 billion XRP tokens are released or sold from that escrow, allowing for significant influence over the market.
This raises a legitimate question in the ecosystem: Can a single entity control the price of a decentralized asset? This level of concentration makes it difficult for the market to reflect free and spontaneous behavior based on supply and demand.