I’m looking at XRP Ledger’s latest numbers, and one thing stands out immediately: activity is becoming more concentrated. The network has fewer active trading accounts than it did a year ago, yet the traders who remain are moving significantly more XRP.
“Fewer active accounts, but much larger trades.”
Daily order-book trading averaged around 3.57 million XRP in Q2, up 79% from a year earlier. At the same time, the number of accounts initiating those trades dropped to roughly 1,100 per day, compared with more than 1,860 last year.
That means the average amount traded per active account jumped to about 3,200 XRP per day, versus roughly 1,070 a year earlier.
To me, this is more interesting than simply looking at the headline volume. It suggests that XRP Ledger’s trading activity is becoming concentrated among a smaller group of participants. That does not automatically mean institutions are replacing retail traders, because one account does not necessarily represent one individual or organization.
Another shift is happening in the assets being traded. The number of assets XRP was exchanged against through the order book fell to around 319 per day from 480 a year earlier, marking the lowest level across the six quarters covered by the report.
At the same time, order-book trading became a much larger part of XRP Ledger’s decentralized exchange activity.
“Order books accounted for 81% of DEX trading in Q2, compared with just 54% a year earlier.”
Total DEX volume averaged approximately 4.42 million XRP per day. That was about 20% higher than a year earlier, although it was 16% lower than Q1 2026.
But the bigger story may not be trading activity at all. It is the amount of value sitting on the network.
Tokenized assets averaged around $3.72 billion during Q2, more than twice the previous quarter and over 30 times higher than a year earlier. When average RLUSD balances of roughly $539 million are included, the total value held on XRP Ledger reached about $4.26 billion.
“More value is moving onto the ledger, even as the number of active users falls.”
RLUSD appears to be one of the biggest drivers behind that change. Average RLUSD supply on XRP Ledger climbed to approximately $539 million from $73 million a year earlier, representing growth of more than 600%. The value transferred through RLUSD also increased more than ninefold.
That pushed XRP Ledger’s share of all RLUSD in circulation from around 20% to 34%.
Meanwhile, broader user activity declined. Daily transacting accounts averaged roughly 16,600 in Q2, down 24% year over year, while new accounts fell about 25% to around 2,800 per day.
Still, this slowdown was not unique to XRP Ledger. Onchain exchange volume across the broader crypto market declined 46% year over year during the quarter, while transaction fees across seven major programmable blockchains fell 38%.
What catches my attention is where XRP Ledger’s infrastructure appears to be heading.
The network has been adding features that could make it more suitable for larger financial players, including permissioned domains that allow institutions to control who can participate in specific markets. Its multi-purpose token functionality was also upgraded during the quarter.
There are also developments around tokenized real-world assets. A portion of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund was redeemed in May, with the asset leg settling on XRP Ledger in less than five seconds.
Proposed changes could also bring additional privacy to tokenized assets, potentially allowing balances and transfers to remain confidential while still giving issuers, auditors and regulators controlled access.
“XRP Ledger is increasingly being built around financial infrastructure, not just retail trading.”
Its Ethereum-compatible sidechain also moved to actively maintained software during the quarter, while RLUSD continued expanding across other blockchains.
Then there is the institutional access coming from the U.S. market. Spot XRP ETFs attracted about $273 million in net inflows during Q2, with positive inflows in each of the three months. That gives institutions exposure to XRP without requiring them to directly hold the token.
For me, the important takeaway is not that XRP Ledger has fewer active accounts. The more interesting signal is that less activity is producing more value.
“Fewer users. Bigger trades. More assets. More stablecoin value.”
That combination could indicate a shift in the network’s role—from a ledger driven primarily by broad retail activity toward infrastructure increasingly designed to support larger transactions, tokenized assets and institutional financial use cases.
The real question now is whether this concentration continues. If the number of active accounts stays lower while transaction sizes, tokenized assets and stablecoin activity keep growing, XRP Ledger could be entering a phase where quality and economic value of activity matter more than the raw number of users.