Ripple reported a 97% increase in sales of XRP for Q1, despite the ongoing legal battle with the Securities Exchange Commission
Total sales net of purchases had gone from $76.27 million in Q4 2020, to $150.34 million in Q1 this year, as revealed by Ripple posting its Q1 markets report on May 6th
The demand for RippleNet’s working capital service On-Demand Liquidity or ODL, caused the surge in sales.
Deeper engagement form key customers is the reason for increase in XRP and Ripple have not sold programmatically for over a year.
As part of providing increased XRP liquidity to improve the ODL experience of certain customers, eliminating the need for pre-funding and enabling instant global payments, Ripple continued to engage in sales to support ODL and key infrastructure partners
Total sales by Ripple accounted for just 0.07% of global XRP volume, according to CryptoCompare.
Removing the need to hold pre-funded accounts for international payments, ODL enables RippleNet clients to source instant liquidity in XRP that can be converted into international currencies within three seconds, according to Ripple.
Three billion XRP had been released from its massive escrow holdings — however 2.7 billion XRP had been returned to new escrow contracts, as reported by the company over the quarter.
Some have attributed XRP’s recent resurgence in part to Ripple labs’ purchase of a 40% stake in cross-border payments firm Tranglo, which was acquired to expand its ODL service into Southeast Asia.
Sheraz Ahmed, the host of the Crypto Valley Association podcast and managing partner at Storm Partners, a crypto and blockchain solutions provider, told Cointelegraph on April 9th that:
“XRP’s upward momentum is fueled by Ripple’s newly announced 40% stake in Asia’s leading cross-border payment processor, Tranglo. The partnership will undoubtedly increase Ripple’s exposure to the Asian market.”
Additionally, wallets holding between 1 million to 10 million XRP grew by 6.3%, up from 1,125 in Q4 to 1,196 in Q1.
The SEC case alleging Ripple Labs of selling unregistered securities worth $1.3 billion, does not appear to be preventing big players from increasing their holdings. The report revealed that the number of XRP whales had increased 3.5% in Q1. The firm posted data via Santiment, which showed “whale wallets” holding 10 million XRP or more increased from 308 in Q4 2020, to 319 in Q1 2021.