According to Messari’s State of XRP report for the first quarter of 2026, the XRP Ledger experienced a remarkable 35.3% increase in daily transactions, reaching 2.48 million, even as the XRP token faced a 27% price decline. This divergence highlights growing network utilization despite weak market sentiment.
XRP’s market capitalization dropped by 26.3% to $82.21 billion, while its price slipped to $1.34. Trading activity also contracted, with average daily spot volume falling 32% and perpetual futures volume declining 28.6%. However, U.S. spot XRP ETFs held 775.4 million XRP, representing 1.26% of the circulating supply, up slightly from the prior quarter.
The surge in XRPL activity was driven by expanding use cases beyond payments, including token issuance, decentralized liquidity, real-world assets, and stablecoins. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin saw its market cap on XRPL rise 44.9% to $340.3 million, making it the largest stablecoin on the network. RLUSD also gained more holders on XRPL than Ethereum, though Ethereum still processed larger transfer volumes.
XRPL’s real-world asset market cap jumped 124.1% quarter-over-quarter to $2.25 billion, lifting the network to seventh place among public blockchains for tokenized assets by the end of Q1 and fourth by publication time. New institutional tools such as Permissioned Domains, Permissioned DEX, and Token Escrow went live, while native lending and asset vault features remain under voting. If approved, these could enable lending, borrowing, and more structured use of XRP and other assets.
The report, commissioned by Ripple but retaining editorial independence from Messari, underscores a key trend: XRPL’s on-chain activity is decoupling from XRP’s price performance. Stablecoin settlement, while boosting network usage, does not always generate the same direct demand for XRP as a bridge asset, creating a complex dynamic for the ecosystem.