November has arrived, and Ripple has shocked the market, preparing what could be its largest monthly dump in seven years. The company, XRP Ledger (XRP)’s core developer and largest holder, reserved 470 million XRP to sell, worth $240 million.

Every month since 2017, Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP and reserves part of it – usually 200 million XRP – to sell. In November, Ripple unlocked the 1 billion but for the first time in years, reserved above two times the usual amount.

This month’s escrows finished within Ripple (24) and Ripple (25) accounts, unlocking 500 million XRP each, as usual. Ripple (25) re-locked it all in escrows for 2028 within Ripple (12) and Ripple (13) accounts, as usual.

However, Ripple (24) re-locked only 30 million XRP within Ripple (12), unprecedentedly sending 470 million XRP to Ripple (1). This is the account used for the monthly dumps throughout the years. The company’s move raised concerns as such a large sell-off could drastically impact the token’s price, punishing XRP investors.

Ripple’s unlocks and largest XRP dumps history

Notably, Ripple’s previous largest dump occurred in June after reserving 200 million XRP and adding an extra 200 million from the idle account Ripple (35), as Finbold reported. The massive and unprecedented sell-off concluded on June 20, which we also covered, totaling 400 million XRP sold.

On this occasion, the XRP price dropped nearly 20% from June 1 to July 7, highlighting the nefarious financial effects. There are no records of such a high dump since 2017 when Ripple implemented the escrow system for more transparency.

Currently trading at $0.511, XRP has accumulated 18.70% losses year-to-date. Interestingly, Ripple sold 2.576 billion XRP in 2024 so far. The largest sales to date occurred in June (400 million), September (350 million), and July (300 million).

What’s next for XRP as Ripple could sell over 470 million tokens

Yet, in all these previous months, Ripple had only reserved the usual 200 million XRP from the escrow unlock. The additional selling pressure came from idle accounts throughout the month – differently from what we are observing now, in November.

Therefore, it is possible that Ripple could add even more selling pressure to the already record-high 470 million XRP. On that note, this month’s activity happens a few days before the U.S. Presidential Election. Chris Larsen, Ripple co-founder and CEO, disclosed a $10 million donation to Kamala Harris’s campaign, which came after the sales.

“It’s time for the Democrats to have a new approach to tech innovation, including crypto. I believe Kamala Harris will ensure that American technology dominates the world, which is why I’m donating $10M in XRP in support of her.”

– Chris Larsen

While Ripple has not disclosed any of these sales, in particular, the company has already disclosed its selling model on many occasions. According to sources, its XRP sales go through an On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) model, selling at market price to willing customers.

Moreover, the cryptocurrency community expects this election’s results to have a profound impact on the market. XRP investors and traders should carefully watch Ripple’s next moves depending on the outcome in the next few days.

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As part of Singapore’s Project Guardian which explores tokenization, Citi and Fidelity International have developed a solution that combines a tokenized money market fund (MMF) with an embedded digital FX swap.

Conventionally, if an institution outside of the United States wants to buy a US dollar MMF, that involves currency risks. They have to convert their local currency into the US dollar to buy the MMF, and when they’re ready to sell the MMF in the future, the exchange rate might have moved against them. So often when investing in a USD MMF, an institution would also execute an FX swap which switches to US dollars today, and converts back to local currency at a specific rate, say one month in the future when they plan to exit the MMF position. In conventional markets, these would be entirely separate transactions.

One target market for the tokenized version would be corporate treasurers that want to invest in USD MMFs to earn yield. But they also want to ensure they can exit the position at any time to use the funds for working capital. With this sort of solution, tokenization would make that possible in real time, which is not something available today.

Given tokenization uses smart contracts that support programmability and composability, Citi’s FX arm collaborated with Fidelity International for the project. Citi simulated the FX swap and Fidelity simulated the issuance and redemption of the MMF tokens, using interoperability protocols as they were on separate networks.

Tokenized money market fund potential

While the conventional US dollar money market fund sector is more than $6 trillion, this area is a promising sector in tokenization. McKinsey ($1.9 trillion) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG: $16 trillion) made very different predictions about the size of the tokenization market in 2030. But they both estimated tokenized funds would reach $400 billion by that date.

A key benefit is the ability to switch in and out of money market funds instantly rather than waiting for once a day issuance and redemption.

Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX and BlackRock’s BUIDL are leading the way on public blockchain, but other institutions are eagerly eyeing the opportunity. Last week there were two announcements out of Singapore. UBS is issuing tokenized USD MMF, and Libeara, a Standard Chartered tokenization startup, is facilitating an issuance in collaboration with Wellington Mangement and FundBridge Capital.

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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has been involved with the mBridge cross border CBDC payment system for four years. Today the General Manager of the BIS, Agustín Carstens, said the project has been handed over to the central banks. They are the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the UAE.

mBridge uses blockchain to enable commercial banks to make cross border payments using wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs). The design supports local currency payments. The G20 has goals of making cross border payments faster, cheaper and more transparent. mBridge is one of the potential solutions to make that happen.

China was responsible for the technology working group and recently shared plans to open source the blockchain-based software.

The BRICS Bridge issue

During the recent BRICS summit, discussion of a BRICS Bridge payment system continued. Given China and the UAE are BRICS members, alongside sanctioned countries Iran and Russia, the perception that mBridge could in any way overlap with BRICS Bridge put the BIS in a tricky position.

Talking today at the Santander International Banking Conference, Mr Carstens addressed the issue head on. “Whatever projects we put together should not be a conduit to violate sanctions,” he said. “mBridge is not the BRICS Bridge and I have to say that categorically. mBridge was not created to cater (to) the needs of BRICS. It was put together to satisfy broad central bank necessities.”

According to Bloomberg, the issue was discussed during last week’s IMF meetings. The potential for the BIS to withdraw was considered.

However, Mr Carstens stated that politics was not the driver of the BIS handover.

“I would say that the project has been so successful that we can declare that we’ve graduated out of that project. The BIS is leaving that project. Not because it was a failure and not because of political considerations, but mostly because we have been involved for four years and it is at a level where the partners can carry it on by themselves,” said Mr Carstens.

The mBridge project progressed to the minimum viable project (MVP) stage in June, although Mr Carstens said is still needs many years of work. “mBridge is not mature enough to start operating,” he added.

mBridge Steering Committee thanks the BIS

In a statement, the mBridge Steering Committee expressed its appreciation to the BIS, saying the handover would allow the BIS to redirect resources to other innovation projects at earlier stages.

“The project team remains fully committed to unlocking the full potential of the mBridge platform and will continue to explore the potential for advancing the platform from the MVP to the full production stage,” the Committee stated.

 

“The handing over of the mBridge project to the participating central banking institutions will have no impact in relation to the legal and operational arrangements on the existing and new participating commercial banks.”

Meanwhile, earlier this week the Bank of China (Hong Kong) announced it is the first fully operational Hong Kong bank that has integrated with mBridge. It will use the platform for select corporate customer payments.

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