XRP ledger activity rises in Q1 despite decline in XRP prices: Messari

XRP has had a somewhat rocky start to 2026 from a price standpoint, but the underlying XRP Ledger has shown notable signs of growth, according to the latest State of XRP report released by Messari.

The analytics firm shows a sharp contrast between weaker market performance and strong network fundamentals, with the adoption of stablecoins, Assets in the real world Coding and transaction activity are increasing during this quarter.

XRP price declines as trading activity slows

During the first quarter of the year, XRP was, for the most part, the fourth-largest unstable cryptocurrency by total market cap, behind only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance Coin.

However, the currency was not immune to the broader market downturn. Its market value fell by 26% on a quarterly basis to about $82 billion, while its price fell decreased By 27% to $1.34 at the time of writing.

For the paths a reportTrading activity also slowed during the aforementioned period. Average daily spot volume fell by 32%, while perpetual futures volume fell by 28.6%. However, institutional exposure continued to build, as CryptoPotato Covered newly. The quarter ended with the ETFs owning about 775.4 million XRP, representing about 1.26% of the asset’s current circulating supply.

XRPL is seeing growth in RWAs, transactions, and stablecoins

While the XRP price was suffering, XRPL activity moved in the opposite direction, supporting the case for strong fundamental support. Al-Masari pointed out that the average daily transactions increased by 35% on a quarterly basis, rising from 1.83 million to 2.48 million.

The network has also seen increasing adoption across stablecoins and tokenized assets.

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Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD expanded to a market cap of $340.3 million on XRPL by the end of the quarter, up 45% from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, XRPL’s real market capitalization rose 124% quarter-on-quarter to reach an all-time high of $2.25 billion.

Massari also reported that new infrastructure is being built in institutional-oriented DeFi. During this quarter, permissible ranges, permissible DEX and token collateral were activated. Meanwhile, local lending protocols and asset vaults are still being voted on.

Overall, these developments can be taken to indicate that institutional funding narratives for XRP have continued to strengthen, despite XRP’s weak price performance.