XRP Ledger Weekly Data Report — Aug 10–16, 2026

1. Executive summary

Short version: a broad, healthy week — the network's strongest in two months, and the market agreed with it. Three headline findings:

• Usage accelerated on every ledger metric: daily transactions +14.3% to 2.64M, active accounts +15.4% to 285K (an eight-week high), and the burn rate confirmed the growth was real, organic demand rather than zero-fee spam.
• RLUSD crossed $1.28B with its fifth straight week of net expansion — and the composition of that growth (corridor pre-funding, issuance-to-exchange ratio) is more significant than the total.
• Derivatives positioning built toward a cycle high with benign funding — a coiled but not crowded market, consistent with the institutionalization story rather than a leverage bubble.

2. The full table — 22 metrics

Sources: XRPScan, Bithomp, DefiLlama, Coinglass, issuer disclosures, RippleX release notes. Snapshot as of Aug 18, 2026 (EOD UTC).

3. On-chain activity

This is the section I read first, because it's the hardest to fake. Daily transactions rose 14.3% to 2.64M — the highest weekly average since mid-June — and crucially, active accounts rose alongside it (+15.4% to 285K). When transactions and accounts move together, the growth is organic; when transactions spike without account growth, it's usually bots or spam. This week was the former.

The subtler signal is in the split between active and new accounts: new accounts grew 13.8%, slightly slower than active accounts. That means this week's activity came disproportionately from existing users returning, not just fresh wallets. Returning users are usually acting on a reason — a reason that has been visible in RLUSD growth and corridor announcements all month.

Network infrastructure is boring in the best way: settlement held at 3.7 seconds, validators at 158, and the rippled 2.4.0 upgrade is progressing on schedule (64% adoption, up 13 points). The fixPreviousTxnID amendment passed the 80% validator threshold and is two weeks from activation. No consensus incidents, no version fragmentation, no drama.

4. Market, derivatives & ETF flows

Price rose 4.8% to $2.84, making a higher low for the fourth consecutive week — $2.58, $2.63, $2.71, $2.84. The price pattern alone is a grind, not a spike; the flow data explains why. Futures open interest jumped 13.5% to $1.94B, a cycle high, while funding stayed benign at 0.011% per 8h. Rising OI with flat funding is the "conviction without leverage" setup — the marginal dollar this week was derivatives money, consistent with ETF-options anticipation.

ETF inflows of $214M were the strongest week since late July and positive on four of five days, with no single dominant day. The steady distribution is more informative than the total: it reads as accumulation by a diversifying buyer base. One caveat I'll repeat: flows lag price by a day, so treat any single-day flow reading as noise. The multi-week trend is the signal.

The one divergence worth noting: spot volume (+8.7%) grew slower than OI (+13.5%). The gap suggests positioning is being built ahead of event catalysts (ETF options decision, September amendment window) rather than being driven by spot buying — a setup that can unwind quickly if a catalyst disappoints.

5. RLUSD & the stablecoin layer

RLUSD crossed $1.28B in supply, its fifth consecutive week of net expansion (+$90M this week — the fastest weekly growth in the asset's history). Two structural details matter more than the total:

• XRPL's share of supply rose to 78% — the ledger is becoming RLUSD's home chain, not just an option. This is a network effect: settlement costs pennies on XRPL, so corridor operators naturally keep more inventory there.
• The issuance-to-exchange ratio improved to 1.4x — more new supply is settling into active exchange wallets than accumulating in custody. That's the fingerprint of real settlement usage; a ratio drifting below 1x would signal warehousing.

Cross-referencing this with the news: two new LatAm corridors (Brazil, Colombia) and a stablecoin-payments integration all landed this week. The corridor flywheel is not a metaphor — you can see it in the issuance data.

6. DeFi: DEX, AMM & composition

XRPL DeFi this week is a study in breadth without depth. DEX volume rose 14.8% to $12.4M/24h, roughly tracking overall network growth. AMM pool count passed 1,850 (+19 pools), but TVL was flat at $118M — the average new pool is small.

The composition is the real story: 30% of pools now quote against RLUSD, up two points, and new pool creation skews that way. Token issuers are adopting RLUSD as the default quote asset — the same shift the stablecoin layer is driving in corridors, now visible in DeFi. Two years ago, that role belonged to XRP alone. This is what a maturing ecosystem looks like: the risk asset stops being the default unit of account.

My honest read: XRPL DeFi is accumulating inventory and quote pairs. The TVL question remains open, and it's a question of incentives, not technology — the ledger's near-zero fees make small pools viable, but nothing yet makes large pools inevitable.

7. Four-week trend comparison

Every ledger metric is above its four-week average, and the trends are consistently upward — transactions +33% across the window, active accounts +33%, RLUSD supply +$240M. Price made a higher low every single week without any parabolic move. The four-week picture is one of accumulation in usage and steady, non-manic price appreciation — my preferred combination.

8. Anomalies & data-quality notes

• Burn rate (+6.5%) grew slower than transactions (+14.3%). Fee burn is proportional to the base fee, so the divergence suggests a mix shift toward cheaper transaction types — payments and trustlines rather than DEX/AMM interactions. Not a problem; a fingerprint.
• New accounts lagged active accounts. Returning-user demand, discussed above. Watch whether it persists — if it does, it's a stronger signal than new-user onboarding.
• Data caveat: active-account figures from explorers are 24h snapshots, so single-day spikes can distort the weekly picture. We report 7d averages where available and flag when we don't.

9. Network health score: 8.7/10

Our composite score blends usage trend (30%), infrastructure stability (25%), stablecoin growth quality (20%), DeFi breadth (15%) and market positioning health (10%). This week's 8.7 is the best reading in nine weeks, driven by the usage acceleration and the improving RLUSD issuance composition. The deductions: DeFi depth (TVL flat) and the OI-positioning risk noted above.

10. Conclusion: what happened last week?

Three things, in order of significance. One: the network quietly set its strongest usage week in two months, driven by returning users — organic demand that shows up in burn and settlement data long before headlines. Two: RLUSD minted its fifth consecutive week of net expansion with XRPL taking a larger supply share and a healthy issuance ratio — the stablecoin is becoming the network's settlement layer in practice. Three: derivatives positioning built toward a cycle high with funding still benign — a coiled but not crowded market, and the main thing I'll watch for a red-day unwind next week.

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Related reading

• Weekly Intelligence — August 16, 2026
• XRP & Ripple Weekly News Review — Aug 10–16, 2026
• XRP Market Intelligence — August 2026