The total number of XRP tokens burned just recently hit a major milestone. This has raised questions as to how much impact these burns can have on the value of the XRP tokens in circulation. Interestingly, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz recently made some comments in this regard as he weighed in on whether or not XRP burns could affect the token’s value.
12 Million XRP Now Wiped Out Of Circulation
Data from the XRP Scan shows that just over 12 million XRP tokens have now been burned and wiped out from circulation. This figure represents just 0.012% of XRP’s total available supply, which now stands at over 99.9 billion. Considering the magnitude of tokens still available, it is hard to imagine that the tokens burned so far can have so much impact on the token’s price.
It is also worth mentioning that the 12 million XRP burned so far is a cumulative total of all the tokens that have been wiped out from circulation since they were premined. As such, these tokens have been burned at separate times and not necessarily on a large scale. With this in mind, that could explain why the XRP community is calling for burns of Ripple’s XRP holdings.
Ripple currently has over 40 billion XRP in escrow. Burning a significant portion of these tokens could have more effect on the token’s price than the 12 million burned so far. However, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz doesn’t believe that this would yield “any real benefits.” He also alluded to how Stellar burning 55 billion XLM tokens in 2019 didn’t have much impact on the token’s price.
Token price falls below $0.6 | Source: XRPUSD On Tradingview.com
Ripple’s XRP Holdings Might Not Be The Problem
Talks about Ripple burning or at least disposing of a significant portion of their XRP holdings continue to spring up in the XRP community. This is because of accusations that the crypto firm is responsible for XRP’s stagnant price based on the belief that they continue to dump their tokens on the market.
These allegations, however, seem unfounded, considering that it has been reported that Ripple’s XRP sales do not have an impact on the token’s price on crypto exchanges. If anything, the crypto firm somehow provides stability to the ecosystem as they are known to perform buybacks at different periods.
Ripple burning their escrowed tokens is also not an easy task, as Ripple’s CTO seemed to suggest in his latest remarks. It has been said in the past that Ripple will likely need the approval of validators to carry out these burns.
A former Ripple Director had previously mentioned that Ripple could simply disable the master key on the destination account that receives these escrowed funds. However, there are no assurances that this could achieve the same purpose as the tokens being wiped out from circulation.