XRP Escrow Standoff: Morgan Wants Faster Unlocks, Schwartz Says No

A public disagreement over Ripple’s XRP escrow release mechanics has surfaced between crypto lawyer Bill Morgan and Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz, exposing a rift on how the company should manage supply that flows back into circulation each month. Morgan is pushing Ripple to relock a smaller share of its monthly escrow release, effectively arguing for a faster pace of XRP entering the open market. Schwartz has pushed back firmly, according to Cryptonews, rejecting any change that would accelerate the unlock timeline Ripple committed to years ago.

For traders tracking XRP’s circulating-supply overhang, the exchange matters because Ripple’s escrow structure is one of the few deterministic, calendar-based supply levers left in large-cap crypto. Under the long-standing arrangement, Ripple releases a fixed monthly tranche from escrow, uses what it needs for sales and partnerships, and relocks the unused portion into new escrow contracts further out on the schedule. That relock mechanism is precisely what Morgan wants adjusted.

What Morgan is proposing

Morgan’s position, as reported by Cryptonews, is that Ripple should relock less XRP each cycle, which would mean a larger net amount of tokens staying in circulation rather than being pushed back into escrow for release years down the line. The practical effect would be a modest but persistent increase in available float relative to the status quo, changing the shape of the supply curve investors have priced in for years.

Schwartz’s response draws a firm line against that idea. He has resisted the push to speed up the unlock cadence, holding to the schedule Ripple has followed since it began the escrow program, according to the report. The disagreement centers on the same nine-year-plus schedule that XRP holders have used as a baseline for modeling future dilution.

Why the escrow schedule matters for positioning

Escrow mechanics are directly relevant to how desks and on-chain analysts model XRP’s forward supply. Any deviation from the established relock ratio changes the effective monthly net issuance rate that flows into exchanges and OTC desks, which in turn feeds into liquidity and overhang assumptions used in positioning models. A move toward Morgan’s proposal would mean less XRP re-escrowed for later years and more available now, a shift that changes near-term float even if the total supply cap is untouched.

Schwartz’s refusal to alter the cadence signals Ripple’s continued preference for predictability over flexibility in its token-release policy. For a network where the escrow contract is publicly auditable on-ledger, holding the line preserves the transparency that market participants have relied on to forecast supply years in advance, rather than introducing discretionary adjustments that could unsettle those models.

An unresolved fault line

The dispute remains unresolved, with Morgan advocating for change and Schwartz standing by the existing framework, per Cryptonews. No formal proposal or governance vote has been reported, and Ripple has not announced any modification to its monthly release-and-relock process. Until that changes, the schedule that has anchored XRP supply forecasts for years stays intact.

Read more: ADA’s 20% Weekly Spike Tests $0.20 as RealFi Testnet Goes Live July 6