The debate around Ripple’s XRP escrow is heating up again, and this time it’s coming from someone who claims to have been in the room when the decisions were made.
Lord Belgrave, a former banker and longtime market commentator, says Ripple never designed its XRP escrow as a stash of tokens waiting to be sold on the open market.
Instead, he argues the escrow was built as long-term institutional liquidity, planned years in advance and tied to global payment infrastructure rather than short-term price action or
speculation.
At the center of the discussion is Ripple’s roughly 34.4 billion XRP held in escrow, worth more than $64 billion at current prices.
For years, critics have questioned how much control Ripple really has over that supply. Belgrave says that question misses the bigger picture. According to him, the escrow was never meant to function like spare inventory in the first place.
What you'll learn 👉
Escrow Was Treated Like Infrastructure, Not Supply
In a detailed post shared on X, Belgrave explained that Ripple structured the escrow with locked supply, fixed release schedules, and long-term planning that revolved around institutional readiness.
From his perspective, people involved in private discussions didn’t view escrowed
XRP as something Ripple could casually sell.
Instead, it was discussed as liquidity that was already spoken for. Not publicly assigned or announced, but internally treated as reserved for future system deployments.
In other words, much of the escrow was already accounted for in Ripple’s internal planning long before the wider market started paying close attention.
That framing challenges the idea that Ripple could simply dump large amounts of XRP whenever it wanted. Belgrave stated that, internally, the escrow was seen as committed future liquidity, not optional supply waiting for the right price.
NDAs and a Global Institutional Focus
Belgrave also said these conversations happened under extremely tight non-disclosure agreements. According to him, the discussions weren’t limited to U.S. institutions either. These people were brought from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
He mentioned the Central Banks, the giant financial institutions, and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements.
Ex-Banker Claims #Ripple Set Aside $XRP Escrow for Global Institutional Liquidity, Not Sales.🧵🧵🧵 pic.twitter.com/lrjoWVg5Yq
— TheCryptoBasic (@thecryptobasic) December 20, 2025
Importantly, however, he stressed that the talks were focused on settlement systems and the international payment infrastructure, and not on promotional partnership or hype-type agreements.
This is consistent with the information that was already disclosed in the case of Ripple vs. SEC, which revealed that Ripple had about 1,700 NDAs with several institutions.
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Why the Tone Is Starting to Change
What Belgrave finds especially interesting is how institutional language around Ripple seems to be shifting lately. He pointed to Ripple’s conditional approval for an OCC bank charter as a possible turning point.
In his view, when a system moves from planning to real-world deployment, secrecy naturally starts to fade. Long-standing NDAs don’t disappear overnight, but the tone changes as projects get closer to going live.
Not everyone fully agrees with that interpretation. XRP community figure and software engineer Vincent Van Code pushed back, noting that NDAs don’t simply expire on their own.
He explained that both sides must formally agree before any confidential details can be shared, often to protect institutions while audits, compliance checks, and regulatory steps are still ongoing.
Why This Matters for XRP Now
Whether Belgrave’s claims hold up or not, they add a new layer to the XRP escrow discussion. If the escrow really was designed as institutional liquidity rather than sellable supply, it could change how people think about Ripple’s long-term strategy.
For now, it’s another reminder that some of the most important developments in crypto tend to happen quietly, long before they become obvious on price charts.
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