The XRP Ledger saw a sharp decline in active order-book traders during the second quarter, but those who remained active traded significantly larger amounts of XRP. Daily traders fell about 40% from a year earlier, while order-book volume increased 79% and the value stored on the network climbed beyond $4 billion.
The ledger averaged 3.57 million XRP in daily order-book volume during Q2, compared with roughly 1.98 million XRP a year earlier. However, the number of accounts initiating those trades dropped to around 1,100 per day from more than 1,860.
That means each active trading account handled approximately 3,200 XRP per day, nearly three times the 1,070 XRP recorded a year earlier, according to a quarterly report from Evernorth, an XRP treasury company preparing for a Nasdaq listing.
The number of accounts does not directly represent the number of individual traders. Institutions may operate multiple accounts, while retail users can also control more than one. As a result, the data cannot confirm whether institutional investors are taking the place of retail traders. It does, however, point to XRP trading becoming concentrated among fewer active accounts.
The range of assets traded against XRP through the order book also narrowed. The number fell to about 319 per day from 480 a year earlier, an 18% decline and the lowest level recorded during the six quarters covered by the report.
At the same time, order-book transactions accounted for a larger share of activity on the XRP Ledger’s decentralized exchange. Order-book trading represented 81% of DEX volume in Q2, compared with 54% a year earlier. The DEX allows users to trade directly on the ledger rather than through centralized exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance.
Overall DEX volume averaged 4.42 million XRP per day, up about 20% from a year earlier but down 16% from Q1 2026.
Network Value Surges
The decline in account activity contrasted with a substantial increase in the value held on the XRP Ledger.
Tokenized assets averaged $3.72 billion during the quarter, more than double their Q1 level and over 30 times higher than a year earlier. Adding average RLUSD balances of $539 million brought the total value on the network to approximately $4.26 billion.
For comparison, the figure was only around $99 million six quarters earlier.
RLUSD, Ripple’s U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, played a major role in the increase. Its average supply on the XRP Ledger surged to $539 million from $73 million a year earlier, representing growth of more than 600%. The value of RLUSD transfers also increased more than ninefold, pushing the ledger’s share of total RLUSD circulation to 34% from 20%.
Despite the growth in value, several indicators of user participation weakened.
The XRP Ledger averaged about 16,600 daily transacting accounts in Q2, down 24% from the same quarter last year. New accounts also declined roughly 25% to about 2,800 per day.
The slowdown was part of a wider contraction across crypto markets. Onchain exchange volume across the broader sector dropped 46% year over year, while transaction fees on seven major programmable blockchains declined 38%.
XRP Ledger Targets Institutional Use
The shift toward larger transactions and higher network value comes as the XRP Ledger develops infrastructure aimed at attracting financial institutions.
In May, part of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund was redeemed, with the asset portion of the transaction settling on the XRP Ledger in less than five seconds. During the quarter, permissioned domains were upgraded, allowing institutions to control participation in specific markets. The ledger’s multi-purpose tokens also received upgrades.
Proposed changes reported by CoinDesk in August would further enhance privacy for tokenized assets. The planned features could keep balances and transfers confidential while allowing issuers, auditors and regulators to access selected information when required.
The network’s Ethereum-compatible sidechain also transitioned to actively maintained software during the quarter, while RLUSD expanded to additional blockchain networks.
Institutional access to XRP also continued to grow through exchange-traded funds. U.S. spot XRP ETFs attracted $273 million during the quarter and recorded net inflows in each of the three months. The products allow institutions to gain exposure to XRP without directly holding the token.
Meanwhile, the CLARITY Act, which seeks to establish whether assets such as XRP should be regulated by the SEC or the CFTC, advanced after passing the Senate Banking Committee on May 14.
