Distributed financial technology firm Ripple is on the verge of locking up billions of dollars worth of its native XRP cryptocurrency inside dozens of smart contracts designed to hold value in escrow until a certain time, or certain conditions are met.
The move to voluntarily freeze its own assets in escrow contracts is designed to combat fears that Ripple might flood its booming market with some of the $16bn worth of cryptocurrency it currently stores and that resulted from holding large amounts of its own currency that hasn't been made available to the public.
Specifically, the San Francisco firm has promised to lock-up 88% of those funds, or about $14bn worth, in a series of smart contracts that briefly make 1bn XRP available each month for a period of at least four-and-a-half years.
Revealed today exclusively to CoinDesk, Ripple hopes the self-inflicted freezing of funds will give XRP owners and aspiring owners a sense of certainty that the market will not suddenly be flooded with the currency, potentially lowering the price.
While Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse argued in interview with CoinDesk that flooding the market would be irrational, and go against his firm's own self-interest, he added that it was time to move the tokens to the smart contracts and remove the element of trust altogether.
Garlinghouse:
"We want to make sure that the Ripple Consensus Ledger is the most robust, and that XRP is the most liquid, and I think this is a very positive step towards that."
That are good news let's keep an eye on ripple.