A viral thread alleging that Ripple systematically dumps hundreds of millions of $XRP on its own holders every month to fund company operations has reignited one of crypto’s oldest debates.
The argument laid out a detailed case against Ripple’s tokenomic structure. The main claim was when $XRP launched in 2012, 100 billion tokens were created at genesis. Founders kept 20 billion and handed 80 billion to the company. In December 2017, Ripple locked 55 billion $XRP into smart contracts releasing 1 billion per month, of which Ripple typically relocks 70 to 80% and keeps the remainder, roughly 200 to 300 million $XRP, to fund operations.
At current prices, that monthly retention is worth approximately $400 million.
“The bull case for the last decade has been “banks are coming”. Ripple still holds around 39 billion $XRP in escrow, roughly 39% of total supply Every holder of $XRP is being slowly diluted by the company itself, by design, on a monthly schedule that’s written into the blockchain $XRP is now down 6 consecutive months,” the post read.
Morgan’s Response
It drew an immediate rebuttal from lawyer Bill Morgan. Morgan rejected the dump theory’s central premise on logical grounds.
“This fool thinks $XRP price fell over the last six months because Ripple sells $XRP each month,” Morgan wrote. “But even he recognises that Ripple has been selling $XRP for many years, so he cannot explain $XRP price increases even in months when Ripple sells $XRP, nor the overall huge increase in its price since 2013.”
His counter-argument is that $XRP price movement correlates primarily with Bitcoin rather than Ripple’s monthly sales activity. If consistent selling were truly suppressing price, that suppression would have been visible across every cycle. Instead, $XRP has posted significant gains during periods of identical selling pressure.
Morgan added a long-term framing that other community members echoed. $XRP is up 24,602% since Ripple began selling it thirteen years ago. Ripple now holds approximately 33% of total supply in escrow, down from significantly higher levels, meaning the theoretical selling pressure decreases over time rather than compounding.
