XRP Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing

XRP supply is growing, and it will likely keep growing. The XRP Ledger never mints new XRP, but Ripple, which holds the coins that were never handed out, moved 898.45M XRP from its escrow and wallets into the market over the last 90 days, while transaction fees destroyed only 44,823 XRP. Net, the circulating supply of 63.13B XRP grew +1.42%, and the next 90 days point to about +1.43% as three more monthly escrow openings arrive.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days from Jul 12 2026 to Oct 10 2026, XRP's net supply change was +1.42%: 898.45M XRP entered the market from Ripple and 44,823 XRP left it through the fee burn. Our inflation monitor, which reads the circulating figure day by day, shows +1.40% for nearly the same window. The gap is 0.02 percentage points, well inside our 0.5-point tolerance, so no warning chip is shown. The next 90 days project +1.43%. XRP is a fixed-supply coin with a managed release: no new XRP is created, but the issuer's escrow pays out on a clock, and that clock sets the growth of the float.

Sell pressure: where new XRP comes from

Protocol inflation is 0. All 100B XRP were created when the XRP Ledger started, and no transaction type can make more: there is no block reward, no mining and no staking pay. The ledger's own running total fell from 99,985.64M to 99,985.59M XRP across the window. On Oct 9 2026 the ledger's developers disclosed an old overflow bug that, if used, could have created XRP out of nothing; it was reported on Sep 22 2026, fixed in server software released on Sep 25 2026, and no sign of use was found. The falling total over the window agrees with that.

Vesting unlocks are 0 on our ledger, even though Ripple's escrow opens 1.0B XRP on the 1st of each month. The openings on Aug 1, Sep 1 and Oct 1 2026 moved 3.0B XRP into Ripple's own wallets. Those wallets are still outside the circulating count, so the opening itself puts nothing on the market. The XRP counts only when Ripple pays it out.

That payout is the Foundation and unscheduled row, and it is the whole story: 898.45M XRP. We read Ripple's 90 known accounts on the XRP Ledger at both ends of the window, balances and escrow together. They held 35,948.66M XRP on Jul 12 2026 and 35,050.21M XRP on Oct 10 2026. Each month Ripple put 700M of the opened 1.0B back into fresh escrow and kept 300M; three months of that kept share, 900M, went out, and its known wallets barely changed. Ripple's own published distribution figures show the same drain over the same dates, within about 1%. For the next 90 days, three more openings are set on the ledger, on Nov 1 2026, Dec 1 2026 and Jan 1 2027, so we project about 900M XRP.

Long-term locked or bankruptcy is 0. No estate, trustee or court plan is paying out XRP. The spot XRP funds and the listed companies that hold XRP bought their coins on the market, so those coins were already in the float.

Buy pressure: where new XRP goes

There is no programmatic buyback: 0. Nothing on the XRP Ledger buys XRP back, and Ripple's $750M buyback in 2026 was of its own company shares, not of XRP.

The protocol fee burn is the only real buyer, and it is small: 44,823 XRP in 90 days, about 498 XRP a day. Every XRP Ledger fee is destroyed, not paid to anyone, so the burn rises only when the network gets busier or fees rise. Against the payout from Ripple, the burn takes back about 1 coin for every 20,000 that enter. We keep the same rate for the next 90 days, as no fee change is in force.

A Foundation buy is 0. The 2.1B XRP that Ripple put back into escrow during the window looks like a lock, but those coins never left Ripple's hands and were never counted as circulating, so re-locking them takes nothing from the market. A new long-term lock is also 0: XRP has no staking, and coins held by funds still count as circulating.

Foundation and overhang

Ripple is the one large holder that matters for XRP supply. Its escrow holds 31.40B XRP, set to open at 1.0B a month from Nov 1 2026 through 2029 on the current schedule. Its known wallets hold another 3.65B XRP, the largest with about 1,330M and 812M, and two wallets that each received 500M from the Oct 1 2026 opening. Ripple's own figures suggest about 1.5B XRP more sits in Ripple wallets we cannot name. Together that is about 36.86B XRP, the exact gap between total supply and the circulating figure. We re-read the escrow and the wallets on every rebuild: if this balance falls between refreshes, the outflow enters the Foundation and unscheduled row at the next refresh.

How XRP compares to other payment Layer 1s

XRP sits in the group of chains where all coins were made at launch and an issuer releases them over time, rather than chains that mint new coins as pay for security. Stellar's XLM and Hedera's HBAR share the shape: a fixed total, a large organisation-held reserve, and supply growth that depends on how fast that reserve is handed out. The XRP difference is the on-ledger escrow, which caps the release at 1.0B XRP a month and makes the schedule readable by anyone, while the re-lock of 700M a month is Ripple's choice.

Against proof-of-work coins like Bitcoin, XRP has no miners to pay, so it has no issuance tied to blocks or halvings, and its supply cannot grow past 100B. Against staking chains like Ethereum, XRP pays nothing to validators and burns every fee, so in a world where Ripple's escrow were empty XRP supply would only shrink. Today the escrow is far from empty, and that is why XRP's 90-day growth of +1.42% is higher than many chains that do print new coins.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Nov 1 2026, Dec 1 2026 and Jan 1 2027: Ripple's escrow opens 1.0B XRP each time. Watch how much goes back into escrow; a re-lock below 700M would raise the payout and the growth.

Ripple's wallets: 3.65B XRP sits outside escrow. A large move from them to buyers, such as a sale to a fund or a treasury company, would add to the payout above the usual 300M a month.

US market-structure law: a fund's filing in August 2026 said Ripple might release more XRP from escrow if the CLARITY Act passes; Ripple itself has not said so. The bill hit a Senate setback in September 2026, so any revival is a watch line.

Fee changes: a holder proposal in October 2026 to raise ledger fees sharply to burn more XRP would need validator votes; nothing is scheduled, and the burn stays tiny unless it passes.

Summary

XRP does not mint new coins, but its circulating supply still grows because Ripple releases XRP from a 31.40B escrow at up to 1.0B a month and pays out the 300M it keeps each month. Over the last 90 days that added 898.45M XRP against a fee burn of just 44,823 XRP, for net growth of +1.42%, with about +1.43% projected next. The key risk is Ripple choosing to re-lock less of each opening; the ceiling is the 100B XRP created at launch, which can never be exceeded.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of XRP, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 10 2026.