The number of daily payments on the $XRP Ledger (XRPL) has now crashed 80% from the May 2026 highs of over 1.69 million.
This comes amid the ongoing market-wide downtrend that has dealt a blow to investor sentiment. Notably, since hitting the $3.6 peak in July 2025, $XRP has collapsed more than 70%, currently trading for $1.08. As a result, bearish sentiments recently hit extreme levels.
$XRP Payment Volume Slumps 80%
Data from $XRP Scan, a leading XRPL explorer, confirms that these bearish sentiments have now begun impacting on-chain activity.
Specifically, the number of payments from one account to another on the $XRP Ledger dropped to a low of 325,888 on Saturday, July 18. This represents the lowest reading recorded on the network since the crash to 28,760 on Oct. 2, 2025, which occurred as a result of an unprecedented event.
After that October 2025 crash, the number of XRPL payments remained above 500,000 every day until late June, when they dropped to around 400,000. Now, this figure has reduced further to a 9-month low of 325,888, indicating that payment activity has continued to decline.
Following the drop to 325,888 on Saturday, payment volume recovered slightly to 327,497 the next day, but this marked a drop below the 400,000 mark.
Importantly, the 325,888 figure represents an 80.7% crash from the recent highs of around 1.694 million daily payments recorded on May 28, 2026. Moreover, it also marks an 85% decline from the yearly peak of 2.188 million payments from February 2026.
Slowdown in Overall $XRP On-chain Activity
Meanwhile, further data confirms an overall slowdown in XRPL on-chain activity besides the crash in the number of daily payments, as prices continue to hit lows around the $1 psychological mark.
For instance, the number of active users on the XRPL, when considering source tags and destination tags, dropped to a low of 123,986 on Sunday, coinciding with the crash in payment volume.
In addition, the number of transactions executed on the network also slumped to 1.129 million that day. This represented a 78% crash from the yearly peak of 5.172 million transactions executed on April 6, 2026.
$XRP Seeing Bearish Price Action
As earlier mentioned, this overall slowdown in network activity has been largely due to the broader market downturn that has led to increased selling pressure surrounding $XRP.
After recovering to $2.41 on Jan. 6, 2026, $XRP witnessed one of its steepest declines over the next few weeks, crashing to a low of $1.11 in early February before rebounding above $1.40. The asset maintained this level until early June, when it lost the support area from $1.1 to $1.4.
Now, $XRP changes hands below $1.1, down nearly 41% this year despite seeing a 4.85% gain in July 2026 so far. $XRP must hold above the $1 level to hedge against any steeper declines from here, which could push prices down to the $0.7 to $0.8 range.
