XRP Ledger Trading Concentrates Among Fewer Active Accounts…

Published: September 6, 2026 – 13:00 UTC

Why Is XRP Trading Moving Through Fewer Accounts?

The XRP Ledger recorded fewer active trading accounts in the second quarter, but the accounts still using its main order book were moving substantially more XRP than a year earlier.Order-book trading averaged 3.57 million XRP per day during the quarter, up 79% from a year earlier. At the same time, the number of accounts initiating those trades fell to about 1,100 per day from more than 1,860.That pushed average trading activity to roughly 3,200 XRP per active account each day, almost three times the 1,070 XRP recorded a year earlier, according to quarterly data shared by Evernorth, an XRP treasury company preparing to list on Nasdaq.The figures do not prove that institutions are replacing retail traders. A single trading firm can control multiple accounts, while individual users may also operate more than one. They do show, however, that order-book activity is becoming concentrated among a smaller pool of active accounts.The number of assets traded against XRP also narrowed. About 319 assets changed hands against XRP on an average day, down from 480 and the lowest level across the six quarters covered by the report.

Is The XRP Ledger DEX Becoming More Concentrated?

The order book also took a larger share of activity on the XRP Ledger’s decentralized exchange, where users trade through the network rather than through centralized venues.Order-book activity accounted for 81% of DEX trading during the quarter, up from 54% a year earlier. Total DEX volume averaged 4.42 million XRP per day, about 20% higher than a year ago, although it fell 16% from the first quarter of 2026.The combination is notable: overall DEX activity remains above year-earlier levels, but trading is increasingly concentrated in fewer accounts and fewer markets.Broader network participation weakened as well. Accounts transacting on XRP Ledger averaged about 16,600 per day, down 24% from a year earlier, while new accounts fell about 25% to roughly 2,800 per day.Some of that decline reflects weaker activity across crypto more generally. Onchain exchange volume across the wider market fell 46% from a year earlier during the quarter, while transaction fees across seven large programmable blockchains dropped 38%.

Investor Takeaway

XRP Ledger activity is becoming less about the number of users and more about the amount of value moved by those who remain active. For investors, the more important question is whether higher-value trading and tokenized assets can offset weaker account growth over time.

Why Is More Value Moving Onto XRP Ledger?

The weaker account numbers contrast sharply with growth in assets held on the network.Tokenized assets averaged $3.72 billion during the quarter, more than double the first-quarter level and more than 30 times their value a year earlier. Including an average $539 million of RLUSD balances, total value held on the network reached about $4.26 billion.Six quarters earlier, the comparable figure was only $99 million.Ripple’s dollar-backed RLUSD stablecoin was a major contributor. Average RLUSD supply on XRP Ledger increased to $539 million from $73 million a year earlier, a gain of more than 600%, while the value transferred using the stablecoin rose more than ninefold.The ledger’s share of total RLUSD circulation also increased to 34% from 20%.That creates a clear divergence inside the network. User counts and new-account creation are falling, while stablecoin balances, tokenized assets and the value handled by active traders are climbing rapidly.

Is XRP Ledger Being Built For Larger Financial Flows?

The data arrives as XRP Ledger adds infrastructure aimed at institutional and tokenized-asset use.During May, part of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund was redeemed with the asset leg settling on XRP Ledger in less than five seconds. Permissioned domains, which allow institutions to control who can participate in specific markets, were also upgraded during the quarter alongside changes to multi-purpose tokens.Developers have additionally proposed confidentiality features for tokenized assets that would keep balances and transfers private while allowing selected issuers, auditors or regulators to retain access where required.The network’s Ethereum-compatible sidechain moved onto actively maintained software during the quarter, while RLUSD expanded to additional blockchains.Institutional access to XRP has also widened outside the ledger itself. U.S. spot XRP ETFs attracted $273 million of net inflows during the quarter, with positive flows in all three months, giving investors exposure without requiring them to hold XRP directly.The result is an increasingly two-sided XRP story. Traditional measures of network participation have weakened, but higher-value trading, stablecoin growth, tokenized assets and institutional infrastructure are expanding. If that pattern persists, XRP Ledger may increasingly be judged less by raw account growth and more by the size and type of financial activity settling on the network.

Source: FinanceFeeds