Legal Expert Urges Ripple to Accelerate XRP Escrow Releases
Australian lawyer and prominent XRP community commentator Bill Morgan has called on Ripple to reduce the amount of XRP it relocks from its monthly 1 billion XRP escrow release. Morgan argues that accelerating the path to a fully circulating supply would establish XRP as a credible hard money asset and alleviate the persistent supply overhang that weighs on market sentiment.
While the core argument is not new, Morgan’s specific framing has brought the issue into sharper focus. Ripple’s CTO Emeritus has already signaled the company’s stance on how far it is willing to deviate from its current approach.
With 32.74 billion XRP still held in escrow, and the current release pace projecting a full circulation timeline of approximately nine years, the structural mathematics lend significant weight to Morgan’s argument. The XRP community is now openly debating whether Ripple possesses both the incentive and the flexibility to shorten this timeline.
Ripple established its escrow system in 2017, placing 55 billion XRP into 55 separate on-ledger contracts, each designed to release 1 billion XRP on the first of every month. This mechanism was intended to ensure a predictable and auditable supply, preventing sudden dumps from a centralized treasury. However, the system also created an indefinitely extendable schedule: Ripple utilizes the XRP it needs for operations and institutional distribution, then relocks the remainder into new contracts, effectively pushing the release timeline forward month after month.
Morgan’s publicly stated position on X is direct: “Ripple should release more of the 1 billion each month and not lock so much back in escrow. The sooner it is all released from escrow and the circulating supply is 100% the quicker XRP will become the best hard money.”
His reasoning is threefold. Firstly, relocking less XRP would shorten the nine-year horizon. Secondly, full circulation would eliminate the psychological impact of a shadow supply that suppresses valuation. Thirdly, a fixed and fully circulating crypto supply is structurally more credible for institutional investors who assess assets based on known fundamentals rather than unpredictable future release schedules.
It is important to note that Morgan’s current stance is not a complete repudiation of the escrow mechanism. He has previously defended it against claims of being a deliberate price-suppression tool, pointing out that XRP experienced significant price appreciation between November 2024 and January 2025 while monthly releases continued uninterrupted. His current call is for a faster completion of a process he considers legitimate.
Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has not supported accelerating the releases and has explicitly rejected more radical proposals, such as burning the escrowed XRP. Schwartz cited Stellar’s token burn as a cautionary example, arguing that it resulted in a short-lived market reaction rather than a sustained increase in valuation. He maintains that Ripple voluntarily relocks any XRP it does not immediately require.
“If you’re thinking that will have some positive impact on the price, I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that,” Schwartz stated. “Stellar’s burn had no real effect and XRP’s price tracked XLM’s through their burn. So what would the benefit of doing that be?”
Regarding the timeline, Schwartz acknowledged the inherent uncertainty. “It’s hard to predict because you have to make assumptions about how much XRP Ripple uses and how much gets put back into subsequent escrow months,” he said.
Schwartz’s position aligns with Ripple’s consistent management of the escrow since its inception. The company has framed its measured and predictable distribution as a feature, not a limitation. Altering this approach would require Ripple to determine that the reputational and institutional benefits of acceleration outweigh the risks of increased near-term sell pressure – a trade-off the company has not yet indicated it is willing to make. Ripple’s recent MiCA regulatory approvals in Europe further underscore this pattern, as the company focuses on building compliant infrastructure where supply stability is a key component of its institutional pitch.
Beyond the immediate news, the division within the XRP community reflects two distinct theories about XRP’s ultimate purpose. The pro-acceleration camp, aligned with Morgan, views the hard money narrative as the primary long-term value proposition, emphasizing a fixed, fully circulating supply that can be evaluated solely on its fundamentals. Conversely, the pro-current-pace camp sees Ripple’s controlled distribution as an asset that bolsters institutional credibility, rather than a liability.
A third concern underlies both perspectives: if Ripple releases more net XRP per month without a corresponding increase in demand, the additional supply could exert downward pressure on the market. XRP’s current price action does not strongly suggest that demand is at a capacity that could smoothly absorb larger monthly net releases.
The option of a token burn, meanwhile, appears to be effectively off the table. Schwartz’s reference to Stellar reflects a settled internal view that destroying escrow reserves would create market noise and permanently eliminate the optionality currently held by Ripple.
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