Order book volume surged as XRP Ledger trading concentrated among fewer, larger accounts in the second quarter.
XRP Ledger entered the second quarter with a smaller visible crowd and exited with a much larger financial footprint. Average daily order book trading climbed 79% from a year earlier even as the number of accounts initiating those trades fell about 41%, a combination that suggests liquidity is concentrating into fewer, larger hands and that matters for investors trying to judge whether the network is maturing or merely narrowing.
The operating picture is unusually bifurcated. Order book trading averaged 3.57 million XRP a day during the quarter, up from a year earlier, while accounts initiating those trades dropped to about 1,100 a day from more than 1,860, according to a quarterly report shared by Evernorth, the XRP treasury company preparing to list on Nasdaq. On a per account basis, that worked out to roughly 3,200 XRP traded each day, against about 1,070 a year earlier.
That shift was accompanied by a broad rise in value held on the network. Tokenized assets averaged $3.72 billion during the quarter, more than double the first quarter and more than 30 times their level a year earlier. Add average RLUSD balances of $539 million and the value held on XRP Ledger reached about $4.26 billion, up from just $99 million six quarters earlier. Ripple’s dollar backed stablecoin was the main driver, with average RLUSD supply on the ledger rising to $539 million from $73 million a year earlier, while the value transferred in RLUSD rose more than ninefold.
The market signal here is less about raw user growth and more about the composition of usage. Daily active accounts averaged about 16,600 in the quarter, down 24% from a year earlier, and new accounts fell about 25% to 2,800 a day. Yet the order book took a larger share of decentralized exchange activity, accounting for 81% of DEX trading in the quarter, up from 54% a year earlier, even as the number of assets XRP changed hands against fell to about 319 a day from 480, the lowest in the six quarters the report covers.
What It Means
My read is that XRP Ledger is behaving less like a consumer network chasing account counts and more like a payments rail or settlement layer where fewer participants can still move materially more value. In plain English, the network looks quieter at the edges but heavier at the core. That can be bullish if the missing activity is low value retail churn and the remaining flow is institutional or treasury driven. It can be more fragile if liquidity is becoming dependent on a small set of market makers, affiliated entities or specialized trading firms.
The distinction matters because blockchains, like exchanges, are judged on both breadth and depth. Breadth is how many users show up. Depth is how much capital can move without breaking price discovery. XRP Ledger’s quarter points to stronger depth but weaker breadth. For markets, that usually means a chain can support bigger products, such as tokenized funds or stablecoin settlement, before it proves it has rebuilt grassroots demand. Investors should see that as a sequencing story, not a finished turnaround.
$4.26 billion
Average tokenized asset and RLUSD balances on XRP Ledger in the second quarter, up from $99 million six quarters earlier.
There is also a useful relative benchmark hidden in the weaker user numbers. The decline was not unique to XRP Ledger. Onchain exchange volume across the broader crypto market fell 46% from a year earlier during the quarter, while transaction fees across seven of the largest programmable blockchains dropped 38%. Against that backdrop, a network that lost active accounts but still posted a 79% increase in order book trading is not simply shrinking. It is reweighting toward larger transaction sizes.
That reweighting fits a wider pattern across digital assets in 2026. Capital has increasingly favored infrastructure that can support regulated wrappers and real world assets over chains that optimize for retail experimentation alone. U.S. spot XRP ETFs took in $273 million across the quarter with net inflows in all three months, giving institutions a route into XRP that does not require holding the token. That does not directly increase onchain wallet counts, but it reinforces the idea that investor demand can now express itself through capital markets plumbing rather than native chain activity.
Background
The ledger’s infrastructure roadmap helps explain why value is rising faster than user counts. In May, part of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund was redeemed with the asset leg settling on XRP Ledger in under five seconds. During the quarter, permissioned domains, which let institutions control who can trade in a given market, were upgraded alongside the ledger’s multi purpose tokens. Proposed changes reported in August were designed to add confidentiality for tokenized assets while still allowing selective access for issuers, auditors or regulators.
Those are not cosmetic upgrades. They are the kinds of controls traditional finance usually requires before moving meaningful balance sheet exposure onchain. A permissioned domain is basically a private room inside a public building. The building remains open, but entry to a given market can be restricted. Confidential balances and transfers serve a similar function. Public blockchains are efficient, but institutions rarely want competitors or counterparties seeing every position in real time. If those privacy and permissioning features work as intended, they could narrow one of the longest standing gaps between crypto rails and institutional workflows.
There is also a stablecoin distribution angle here. RLUSD expanded across several additional blockchains during the quarter, yet XRP Ledger’s share of all RLUSD in circulation still rose to 34% from 20%. That suggests the network is not merely hosting a token but capturing a larger portion of the token’s economic utility. In operational terms, the chain is becoming one of RLUSD’s main working capital venues, not just an issuance endpoint.
The Bear Case
The counterargument is straightforward. Fewer active accounts, fewer new accounts and fewer assets trading against XRP could point to a narrower ecosystem, not a healthier one. Concentration can improve headline volume and still leave a market more brittle. If activity is dominated by a limited set of accounts, the withdrawal of even a few participants could hit liquidity harder than top line metrics imply. That is especially relevant in crypto, where treasury behavior, incentives and market making relationships can distort what looks like organic demand.
There is a second caution for equity and token investors. Infrastructure progress does not automatically convert into sustained network effects. The Ethereum compatible sidechain moved onto actively maintained software during the quarter, and legislative momentum improved after the CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14. Both are constructive. But institutional adoption tends to move in phases: pilot, restricted production, scaled issuance, secondary market liquidity. XRP Ledger has clearer evidence of progress in the first three stages than in the fourth, where a diversified base of repeat participants is what ultimately turns infrastructure into durable market share.
What to watch next is whether the ledger can translate balance sheet value into broader participation. The key triggers are continued net inflows into U.S. spot XRP ETFs, implementation of proposed confidentiality changes for tokenized assets, and whether permissioned market upgrades lead to more settlement activity like the Treasury redemption seen in May. If value held on the network keeps rising while account counts stabilize, the market will likely read that as institutional consolidation. If account activity keeps falling, the comparison set shifts from expanding rails to concentrated venues, alongside other tokenization and payments focused networks competing for the same flows.
Frequently asked questions
Why does XRP Ledger have fewer active accounts but bigger trades?
The data suggests trading activity is becoming more concentrated among fewer participants placing larger orders. That can mean institutions, whales, or more active professional traders are driving a bigger share of XRP Ledger volume.
What does a 79% jump in XRP Ledger order book trading mean for investors?
A 79% rise in average daily order book trading points to deeper dollar activity on the network, even if participation is narrower. For investors, that can signal stronger liquidity in size, but also a market more influenced by large holders.
Is lower account activity on XRP Ledger a bearish signal?
Not necessarily. Fewer active accounts can look weak on the surface, but if trading value and transaction size are rising, the network may be supporting more capital-efficient activity rather than broad retail participation.
What does liquidity concentrating into fewer hands mean in crypto markets?
It means a smaller group of traders is accounting for a larger share of trading volume and value. That can improve execution for big trades, but it can also increase the market impact of moves by large participants.
How should I read XRP Ledger network data versus XRP price action?
Network data helps explain who is using the chain and how money is moving, while price reflects broader market sentiment, regulation, and macro conditions. A stronger trading footprint on XRP Ledger does not automatically guarantee a higher XRP price, but it can shape how resilient the market looks.
What is the main takeaway from this XRP analysis?
The main takeaway is that XRP Ledger ended the quarter with a smaller visible crowd but a larger financial footprint. In plain terms, fewer accounts were active, yet the trades being executed were larger and carried more value.
