📚 [Messari Research] Discrepancies in XRP circulating supply and Ripple's reported "distributed supply"

New research from Messari provides further evidence that XRP's circulating supply is significantly overstated by the company and third-party indices and data aggregators. However, we found that Ripple's key disclosures regarding sales and estimated trading volumes understates the pace of selling pressure from Ripple and its founders and affiliates. This research finds XRP’s circulating supply inflated by 11.5% in the past six months compared to the 4.5% implied by Ripple's Data API.

The company appears to rely on CoinMarketCap’s headline volumes figure rather than the volumes from the exchanges upon which it currently trades. As a result, quarterly XRP sales as a percentage of global trading volume may be significantly understated due to Ripple’s inclusion of fake volumes from exchanges known to facilitate extensive wash trading or fee-less trading. Many of these exchanges have been excluded from Ripple’s own data API.

Messari's circulating supply data will soon be available for all major assets, and Messari is working closely with major indices and passive funds to provide more accurate data on supply and trading volumes.