XRP Supply & Escrow
Understand XRP supply, escrow, and what happens to transaction fees.
30-Second Version
- All 100 billion XRP were created when the ledger launched. No mechanism exists to create more.
- Every transaction destroys a tiny amount of XRP as a fee, so total supply gradually decreases.
- Escrow is a built-in ledger feature that locks XRP until a set time or condition. Anyone can use it.
- Ripple placed a large amount of XRP into escrow contracts that release on a schedule; unspent amounts have generally been returned to escrow.
Go Deeper
Fixed supply, slowly shrinking
Unlike networks that mint new units as a reward for block production, the XRP Ledger has no issuance. The 100 billion XRP created at genesis is the maximum that will ever exist.
Transaction fees on the XRPL are not paid to validators. They are burned — permanently removed from supply. The effect is small, but it moves in one direction.
Circulating vs. total supply
- Total supply: all XRP that exists, minus what has been burned.
- Escrowed XRP: locked by ledger escrow objects and not freely transferable until release.
- Circulating supply: what is currently available to move and trade.
How escrow works
Escrow is a native XRPL feature. An account can lock XRP so that it can only be released after a specified time, or when a cryptographic condition is met. Until then, the funds cannot be spent — including by the account that created the escrow.
- 01
Create
XRP is locked into an escrow object on the ledger.
- 02
Wait
Release time or condition must be met.
- 03
Finish
XRP moves to the destination account.
The account reserve
Each XRPL account must hold a small base reserve in XRP, with an additional reserve for certain ledger objects it owns. This discourages spam accounts. Reserve amounts are set by the network and have been reduced over time through validator votes.