Recently news has circulated that the company has put 55,000,000,000 tokens in escrow, a feature of the Ripple network. According to the Ripple website https://ripple.com/dev-blog/explanation-ripples-xrp-escrow/ the 55B tokens are in a "series of escrows". Each month, according to the ripple ledger, 1 Billion tokens will be released to new institutional buyers. Any tokens not purchased out of escrow will be returned and placed at the end of the line and only released when the first 55 monthly escrows have completed. All told there will be 55 consecutive monthly sales of XRP. Rumors swirling the internet claim that this coming year we will see large banks and institutions begin buying into crypto-currency. Given Ripples ties to the financial world it’s a safe bet their tokens will be the first to be bought by banks. The effect of this escrow was well timed as XRP has risen from its summer price of nearly a quarter to now more like a eighty cents per XRP. I think this move is clever on their part as the supply has been shrunk by more than half for the next few years. This is the first move I have seen in crypto that shows long-term, multi-year strategy. It seems Ripple is a likely candidate to be added to Coinbase in the coming year. Stay tuned!