XRP’s recent price action in recent weeks has been under selling pressure, with the cryptocurrency struggling to regain the psychologically important $2 level. From a technical point of view, the The structure is still leaning bearish And lacks strong upward momentum.
However, beneath this subdued price behavior, activity on the XRP Ledger points to a more complex context that contradicts what is only visible on price charts.
XRP Price Weakness Meets Notable Network Activity
The price of XRP has been trading below $2, and this level, for the past few weeks has repeatedly performed as resistance during recovery attempts. Momentum indicators such as the 50, 100 and 200 day simple moving averages instead show hesitation of continued buying pressure, despite inflows into Spot XRP ETFs. This has left XRP’s price vulnerable to prolonged consolidation or further declines as long as buyers fail to regain higher technical ground.
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Bitcoin and the wider Crypto market conditions haven’t helped. Capital rotation away from altcoins has provided limited upside follow-through, leaving XRP and many other large market cap cryptocurrencies exposed to bearish movements.
However, data from the XRP Ledger tells a very different story. Network statistics show a steady streak of high activity, with the number of daily transactions recently approaching 900,000 payments per day, making this one of the busiest periods in months. This increase has not been smooth or gradual either, as data shows clusters of higher value transfers occurring alongside the increase in overall volume.
This data comes from the XRPL tracker website XRPScan, which shows that daily transaction numbers were consistently above 900,000 in December, with some daily peaks above 1 million transactions. The pattern suggests that activity may continue longer than you would expect based on current bearish momentum, given that periods of high retail activity like this are expected to contribute to bullish momentum.
XRP Payments Activity. Source: XRPScan
Price and chain divergence leave XRP at a crossroads
The growing gap between XRP’s bearish price structure and strengthening on-chain activity raises questions about how the market currently values network usage.
A closer look at the payment volume between accounts reveals that hundreds of millions of XRP are transferred every day, with some days seeing flows exceeding a billion XRP. In dollar terms this means billions of value in motion every day in the ledger, despite the lack of upward momentum in the price.
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Interestingly, the number of active users (source tag + destination tag) also hovers in the hundreds of thousands, which is much more than you would expect for a cryptocurrency that struggles with price action. One explanation is that XRP traders only actively trade in the short term.
XRP Active Users. Source: XRPScan
This divergence places emphasis on whether the current force is present in the chain represents early positioning prior to a deeper adoption or institutional developments related to Ripple, or whether it will still remain disconnected from short-term demand in the open market.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com