A rare piece of footage from 2017 has resurfaced recently, shedding new light on Ripple’s financial strategy concerning its large cache of escrowed XRP tokens. The video is of a speech by David Schwartz, the Chief Technology Officer at Ripple.
Stashed Tokens, Strategic Use
In the video clip, which was recorded at EdaFace’s Consensus event in 2017, Schwartz talked about the sizable cache of XRP tokens – totaling 54 billion – that Ripple holds in escrow. He mentioned that Ripple’s financial backbone comes from venture capital investments, allowing the company to manage its large XRP holdings in a more strategic manner instead of using them like a conventional bank account.
This strategic approach to handling their XRP holdings means that these tokens could be used in specific ways rather than merely financing the daily operations of the business. For instance, he said, Ripple might use them to fend off lawsuits.
Schwartz can be heard expressing the idea that Ripple would leverage its escrowed XRP holdings to protect the company, and by extension, the wider crypto space, should a significant threat arise. Such a strategy would allow Ripple to act in its best interest while defending itself and its stakeholders.
Escrowed Tokens: Beyond Salaries
The Ripple CTO then moves on to discuss more potential uses for the escrowed XRP. He emphasizes that the tokens don’t need to be deployed for payroll purposes. They could also be used as incentives, particularly for institutional investors, aligning their interests with those of Ripple and other XRP holders, given the future value of XRP is crucial to them.
Schwartz concedes that the escrowed tokens could serve as a revenue stream for Ripple, but he insists that the tokens are not exclusively reserved for this purpose. Their successful use, he believes, would put upward pressure on XRP’s price, thereby benefiting all stakeholders.
In the aftermath of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple in 2020 and the recent crackdown on cryptocurrencies in June 2023, XRP’s price fell significantly. However, it has since recovered to $0.4792, at the time of writing.
