A uncommon piece of footage from 2017 has resurfaced not too long ago, shedding new mild on Ripple’s monetary technique regarding its massive cache of escrowed XRP tokens. The video is of a speech by David Schwartz, the Chief Expertise Officer at Ripple.
Stashed Tokens, Strategic Use
Within the video clip, which was recorded at CoinDesk’s Consensus occasion in 2017, Schwartz talked concerning the sizable cache of XRP tokens – totaling 54 billion – that Ripple holds in escrow. He talked about that Ripple’s monetary spine comes from enterprise capital investments, permitting the corporate to handle its massive XRP holdings in a extra strategic method as a substitute of utilizing them like a traditional checking account.
This strategic method to dealing with their XRP holdings signifies that these tokens might be utilized in particular methods fairly than merely financing the every day operations of the enterprise. As an illustration, he mentioned, Ripple would possibly use them to fend off lawsuits.
Schwartz may be heard expressing the concept that Ripple would leverage its escrowed XRP holdings to guard the corporate, and by extension, the broader crypto house, ought to a big menace come up. Such a method would enable Ripple to behave in its greatest curiosity whereas defending itself and its stakeholders.
Escrowed Tokens: Past Salaries
The Ripple CTO then strikes on to debate extra potential makes use of for the escrowed XRP. He emphasizes that the tokens don’t have to be deployed for payroll functions. They is also used as incentives, significantly for institutional traders, aligning their pursuits with these of Ripple and different XRP holders, given the longer term worth of XRP is essential to them.
Schwartz concedes that the escrowed tokens might function a income stream for Ripple, however he insists that the tokens should not solely reserved for this goal. Their profitable use, he believes, would put upward stress on XRP’s value, thereby benefiting all stakeholders.
Within the aftermath of the SEC’s lawsuit in opposition to Ripple in 2020 and the latest crackdown on cryptocurrencies in June 2023, XRP’s value fell considerably. Nonetheless, it has since recovered to $0.4792, on the time of writing.