The XRP Ledger (XRPL) community was recently rocked by the burning of a significant number of DROP tokens on the network, sparking a wave of speculation among enthusiasts. XRPScan, an XRPL explorer, recorded the transaction on October 18, 2024 at 06:56 UTC, which saw 10,000 DROP tokens incinerated. The transaction incurred a fee of 0.000012 XRP.
Although the transaction took place earlier in the month, it only gained attention from the broader XRP community following a tweet from XRPScan. The explorer humorously urged the community to observe a “minute of silence” for this considerable transaction.
The unexpected burning of DROP tokens sparked a heated debate within the XRP community, with many wondering whether the burning was a deliberate act or a simple mistake. Thomas Silkjaer, head of analytics and compliance at the Estonia-based Inclusive Financial Technology Foundation (InFTF), took part in the discussion, suggesting that the token burn was likely deliberate. This sentiment was echoed by XRPScan, which noted that the account involved in the burning was recently mentioned on First Ledger’s About page.
DROP is a memecoin based on XRP Ledger hosted on First Ledger, a crypto trading platform. At the time of the fire, each DROP token was valued at $5.07, meaning the total value of the incinerated tokens was $50,700. Following the burn, the total supply of DROP tokens was reduced to 989,000 from the original 1 million.
Interestingly, this event occurred alongside an update from First Ledger regarding the potential impact of memecoins on the price of XRP. In an article, First Ledger noted that XRPL-based memecoins could prove bullish for XRP. The reason behind this is that trading XRPL-based tokens requires users to pay fees in XRP, which is then automatically burned. Therefore, an increase in the popularity of XRPL-based memecoins could lead to an increase in XRP burning, which could drive up the price of XRP.
Currently, a total of 12,964,929 XRP has been burned thanks to XRPL transaction fees. Although the future of XRPL-based memecoins remains uncertain, recent developments around DROP have certainly sparked discussion and speculation within the XRP community. As it stands, all eyes are now on the potential impact of XRPL-based memecoins on the future of XRP.
