According to data provided by Whale Alert, 700 million XRP tokens have been locked by Ripple in escrow. 

As part of its long-standing escrow program, Ripple releases one billion XRP on a monthly basis to ensure that the supply of the leading altcoin remains predictable. 

The released XRP tokens are used for institutional sales, operational expenses and other purposes. 

Ripple typically returns a certain portion of tokens to escrow. Last month, 700 million XRP similarly went back into escrow without the scheduled one billion token release. Escrows with 700 million tokens were created from surplus XRP in the company's accounts.

"Ripple used some of its current XRP holdings to create escrows. As you can see in this post, Ripple holds a few billion XRP not in escrow," Cyprus-based XRP analyst Leonidas Hadjiloizou explained.

As reported by U.Today, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently did not rule out that the company might reduce its XRP sales in the future. This could potentially ease pressure on the price of the token. 

Ripple continues to own more than 40% of the total supply of the XRP token. 

Last month, Ripple withdrew its cross-appeal against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after the agency agreed to ask the court to drop the injunction that has blocked the company from selling XRP tokens to institutional clients.  The injunction was part of Judge Analisa Torres's final ruling that was unveiled last August. 

The price of XRP has been unaffected by Ripple's recent moves as the token remains mostly flat. According to CoinGecko, it is down by a mere 0.2% over the past 24 hours. This does not come as a surprise given that XRP tends to experience little volatility due to escrow-related developments.