XRP Ledger (XRPL) crossed 5 billion transactions, with new data showing activity increasingly concentrated among a small group of accounts.
Bitquery found that 793 sender accounts generated 75.98 million of XRPL’s 81.56 million transactions in August, or 93.2% of the month’s activity. The firm classified 767 of those accounts as machines, responsible for 92% of all transactions, while 26 exchange hot wallets contributed another 1.1%.
The concentration extends beyond transaction counts. Evernorth Research found that XRPL order-book trading volume rose 79% from a year earlier in the second quarter even as the number of accounts initiating those trades fell about 40%.
Together, the datasets point to a network processing more activity through fewer participants, though Evernorth said part of that shift could reflect professional traders taking a larger share of flow.
That distinction complicates the significance of XRPL’s 5.06 billion validated-transaction milestone. The ledger is handling enormous throughput, while the economic value behind that traffic increasingly depends on whether automated activity settles into trades, payments, and liquidity that require meaningful XRP balances.
One account placed nearly 13 million orders
The gap between network activity and economic execution becomes stark at the account level.
Bitquery identified one address that generated almost 13 million transactions in August, including 12.79 million decentralized-exchange orders. Only 882 of those orders resulted in trades. The account alone produced roughly one-sixth of everything XRPL processed during the month.
Across the ledger, Bitquery counted 2.97 million settled trades on XRPL’s built-in exchange from 12,153 accounts in August. That was a fraction of the more than 81 million total transactions recorded during the period.
The firm’s breakdown shows how automation shaped the wider total. DEX order bots generated 39.25 million transactions, or 48.1% of August traffic, while dust-spraying accounts contributed another 18.79 million. NFT-related automation, check spam, and other machine activity accounted for millions more.
Most accounts sat at the opposite end of the distribution. Nearly half of the accounts active during August sent a single transaction, while four-fifths sent five or fewer. Bitquery’s lower-frequency filter, which excluded dust-level transfers, captured 89.6% of transacting accounts but only 0.8% of total ledger activity.
The numbers measure addresses rather than individual users. A single exchange wallet can represent thousands of customers, while one trading firm can operate multiple addresses, limiting how directly account concentration translates into user concentration.
Fewer traders are moving more XRP
However, Evernorth’s quarterly data shows that the shrinking participant base has coincided with larger trades and deeper balances.
Order-book activity averaged 3.57 million XRP a day during the second quarter, up 79% from a year earlier. The average number of accounts initiating those trades fell to 1,111 a day from 1,864, pushing average volume per trading account to 3,217 XRP from 1,072.
Across XRPL’s broader decentralized exchange, trading averaged 4.42 million XRP per day, about 20% higher year over year. Evernorth said roughly 2,435 accounts traded daily, with fewer participants moving more XRP than in the previous year.
The change gives the concentration data a more nuanced interpretation. Evernorth said the pattern is consistent with professional flow taking a larger share of activity as XRPL added institution-facing infrastructure, including permissioned domains and trading venues.
Capital on the network also expanded. Average value held on XRPL reached $4.26 billion in the quarter, the highest level in Evernorth’s six-quarter series. RLUSD balances averaged $539 million, up 642% from a year earlier, while value moved through the stablecoin increased 925%.
Broader participation weakened at the same time. Daily transacting accounts averaged 16,587 and new accounts 2,783, both down about 25% year over year.
Evernorth said account counts tend to be more sensitive to retail activity, which retreated across crypto markets during the quarter.
XRP’s liquidity test moves beyond transaction counts
For XRP, the commercial question increasingly turns on where the growing capital actually trades.
Evernorth’s trading figures count swaps involving XRP and exclude trades between two non-XRP assets. Those excluded transactions represented 18% of trades and roughly 9% of value during the second quarter, underscoring how activity can expand on XRPL without passing through XRP itself.
That leaves exchanges, market makers and token issuers with a more demanding measure of adoption than headline transaction totals. Deeper RLUSD balances and larger professional trades can support more liquid markets, but the benefit to XRP depends on how often those markets use it as inventory, collateral or a routing asset.
The next quarters will show whether the current concentration becomes a feature of a more institutional market or remains dominated by automated traffic.
