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XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the Ripple network, has seen its price grow massively in recent months, allowing it to surpass many other large market cap cryptocurrencies. At the time of writing, XRP is the third-largest crypto by market cap, and current purchasing trends Suggest you could stay there for a while.
As of January 25, 2025, the Altcoin has a total supply of 100 billion tokens, with approximately 57.64 billion currently in circulation. Notably, a significant portion of this circulating supply is concentrated among a small number of wallets. Specifically, the top 10 addresses hold about 20.99% of the circulating supply, while the top 50 addresses control about 53.3%, raising the question about the distribution of wealth in the ecosystem and which will benefit the most from the price rally. .
Top 20 Wallets and Their Dominance over XRP Supply
The largest holdings of XRP are primarily associated with Ripple Labs, its founders, and major cryptocurrency exchanges. In terms of numbers, Coincarp Data It shows that of the 4,840,747 addresses, the top 20 holders, the top 50 holders and the top 100 holders hold 50.31%, 63.74% and 71.76% of the circulating supply, respectively.
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According to distribution data, Ripple Labs currently owns Around 46 billion XRP tokens, although most are locked in escrow. These tokens are released periodically In pre-established amounts, limiting Ripple’s ability to freely access or manipulate dependent funds. Even with these restrictions, Ripple Labs holds a considerable amount of liquid XRP. Data of blockchain explorer bithomp It indicates that one of Ripple’s wallet addresses alone contains over 1.3 billion XRP.
Furthermore, Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen He is the largest individual holder of XRP, holding over 5 billion tokens, making him one of the richest people in the ecosystem. Major exchanges like Binance and Defense also manage significant reserves. For example, one of Binance’s wallets has over 1.3 billion XRP, which represents about 1.33% of the circulating supply. South Korean crypto exchange upbit also holds around 4.38% of the total supply, among a few other exchanges.
Holding Distribution: Something to fear?
These large-scale holdings by exchanges and ripple-related entities paint a picture of an XRP ecosystem dominated by a relatively small group of stakeholders. However, when you think about it, these large properties are not in the hands of any private company or individual who is potentially at risk of manipulating the price for their benefit.
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Furthermore, most exchanges represent aggregated assets owned by thousands, if not millions, of individual users. As such, its concentration on exchanges does not pose any unnatural risks to the natural price dynamics for XRP.
At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $3.10, having recently reached a seven-year high of $3.38.
Featured image from Medium, chart from TradingView.com
