According to CryptoPotato, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) network activity has seen a significant increase in nearly all metrics this year, coinciding with the broader market recovery. Active addresses and transactions have risen by 37% and 113% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), respectively, as per Messari's recent report. A large part of this activity came from a group of around 45,000 accounts, which together sent over 30 million transactions to a single account, mainly for inscription-related activities.
Inscriptions, a type of transaction that became popular on Bitcoin in early 2023, have since spread to other major networks, including XRPL, often leading to substantial activity spikes. Despite the high transaction volumes, XRPL showed resilience, handling over 80 transactions per second for an entire day without network issues. The total number of accounts increased by 150,000, a 3.1% rise to 5.15 million. However, new addresses decreased by 12.4% QoQ to 183,000 due to a surge in Q4 when inscription activity began, but there was a 29.8% annual increase from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024. Deleted addresses also increased by 55.9% QoQ to 33,000 as inscription activity slowed.
The total market cap of fungible tokens, known as Issued Currencies, dropped by 16% QoQ to $142 million. Among the over 3,300 assets listed on the XRPL, Sologenic (SOLO) was the leading token, accounting for 42% of the total market cap. The top three tokens collectively represented 65% of the total market cap. Stablecoins and wrapped tokens are notably popular on XRPL when measured by the number of holders, compared to other tokens. Gatehub and Xumm have partnered to offer 14 digital assets on XRPL. However, stablecoins on XRPL have not yet reached the adoption levels of major ones on other networks, like Tether’s USDT or Circle’s USDC.
This could change with Ripple's recent announcement to launch a USD-pegged stablecoin on both the XRPL and Ethereum, leveraging XRPL native functionality and ERC-20 token standards, respectively. The stablecoin will be fully backed by US dollar deposits, short-term US. treasuries, and other cash equivalents, with monthly third-party attestations. This initiative could potentially trigger a significant liquidity event.
