XRP drops 27% this quarter as on-chain activity surges 35%

XRP has fallen 27% in the second quarter even as daily transactions on the XRP Ledger climbed 35%, creating the widest gap between network usage and token valuation in two years.

XRP fell 27% to $1.15 in the second quarter, its worst period since late 2024, as selling pressure overwhelmed a 35% surge in on-chain activity. Daily transactions on the XRP Ledger averaged 2.8 million in June, up from 2.1 million in March, according to XRPScan data, while the token's market cap shrank by roughly $27 billion over the same period.

The divergence stems from a structural mismatch: most of the network's growth comes from tokenized real-world assets and stablecoin transfers that settle in RLUSD, not XRP. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries on the ledger grew eightfold to $418.5 million in the year through April, and JPMorgan, Mastercard and Ripple settled a cross-border Treasury redemption on XRPL in under five seconds in May — but none of those transactions required buying XRP.

The disconnect leaves XRP holders waiting for a mechanism that ties network growth to token demand. The XLS-66 lending protocol, which would let holders deposit XRP into on-chain vaults funding institutional loans, entered validator voting in January but remains in testing. Until it goes live, the ledger's expansion benefits Ripple's stablecoin business and institutional infrastructure — not the token's price.

$1.20 Support Holds as Selling Pressure Eases

XRP briefly traded above $1.25 on June 12 before sellers drove it back below $1.23 on the session's heaviest volume, according to CoinGecko data. The token settled at $1.15 as of June 13, down 3.3% in the prior 24 hours. Traders are watching $1.20 as the critical support level; a break below that would open the door to $1.15, while a recovery above $1.25 would suggest the selloff was profit-taking rather than a structural reversal.

XRP ETF products recorded $10.68 million in inflows last week, lifting cumulative inflows to roughly $1.44 billion since November 2025, according to The Block data. South Korea's Upbit exchange accounted for 31% of XRP wallet flow activity in the week through June 14, up from 13% a month earlier.

Tokenized Assets Grow, But XRP's Role Remains Indirect

Total real-world assets on the XRP Ledger topped $4 billion in May, up from $900 million at the start of the year, per rwa.xyz. But only about $385 million of that is held and moved by investors directly on-chain; the rest is recorded as a registry. A single energy token, JMWH, accounts for $2.2 billion of the total with just 19 holders and zero transfers last month.

The Treasury segment is the exception. Ondo Finance's OUSG fund, backed by BlackRock's BUIDL, mints and redeems on XRPL using RLUSD, and transfer volume reached $352.3 million in the first four months of 2026 — five times the full-year 2025 total. Yet each transaction burns only a fraction of a cent in XRP fees. The ledger has destroyed roughly 14.3 million XRP since 2012, or about 0.02% of circulating supply.

Ripple Prime, the company's brokerage arm, joined the DTCC's tokenization working group alongside Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, with a pilot for production trades planned for July. A seat at that table gives Ripple a chance to argue for XRPL as a settlement rail, but it does not guarantee XRP demand.

The XLS-66 lending protocol remains the most direct path to connecting network growth to token value. If approved, it would let institutional borrowers take loans funded by XRP deposits, giving holders a yield and the token a functional role in the asset ecosystem growing around it. For now, that link remains theoretical.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.