It’s the beginning of October and Ripple has unlocked yet another 1,000,000,000 XRP from its escrow. At the time of writing, that’s worth about $256,000,000.

Although considered to be standard procedure at this point, one has to wonder what the end result is.

Ripple has stood out this year has being the worst-performing cryptocurrency in the top 10. In fact, it is the only cryptocurrency in the top 10 to post losses for 2019 thus far.

The most-recent 1B XRP unlock by the team’s escrow wallet might feel like déjà vu. After all, BeInCrypto also reported just yesterday that another batch of 60M XRP was transferred to Ripple’s OTC distribution wallet. Then again, earlier in September, another 500M XRP was transferred out of the team’s escrow wallet. Let us not forget that ex-CTO of Ripple, Jed McCaleb, also got his share recently as well — 100M XRP (valued at $26M) was moved into his wallet last month.

All of these events are, admittedly, a bit curious.

Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse claims that ‘Ripple cannot control XRP’s price.’ Yet, the persistent movement of coins, almost on a weekly basis, seems to be imposing a clear sell pressure on the market. Ripple claims to only be unlocking 1B XRP monthly — which is still very significant — but, that being said, analysts have noted discrepancies in how much XRP is actually being unlocked and sold. According to Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics, reported figures have differed from the actual XRP sold at least twice, he said.

Given the inflated supply and the incessant amounts of XRP being unlocked, one can easily connect the dots as to why XRP is performing the worst out of all the top 10 cryptocurrencies.

It also begs the question: What is Ripple doing with the hundreds of millions it is earning monthly from mass-selling its tokens? These are questions that ultimately will need an answer.

Do you agree that Ripple is largely to blame for the token’s poor performance in 2019? Should investors be especially worried? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.