Key Takeaways
- XRP recorded its lowest daily close since November 2024.
- Active addresses rose about 35%, while new addresses stayed flat.
- Higher activity does not confirm growth in individual users.
XRP Price Weakness Collides With Higher Ledger Activity
XRP traded near $1 on Aug. 13, its lowest level since November 2024 and roughly 69% below its January 2025 peak near $3.30, as ledger activity increased despite the steep retreat. Santiment’s analysis showed active addresses rising sharply in August while new-address creation remained virtually unchanged from July.
Amid favorable regulatory momentum, XRP climbed even higher in July 2025, reaching a new peak of approximately $3.65. The summer rally briefly pushed its market capitalization above $200 billion, cementing it as one of the top-performing assets of that period.
“Price closed at ~$1.00 on Aug 12, the lowest daily close since Nov 2024 and roughly 69% below the January 2025 peak near $3.30,” Santiment wrote, demonstrating how far the asset has retreated during the prolonged decline. The firm added:
“Activity picked up anyway. Active addresses averaged ~35,700 a day in August against ~26,400 through July, up roughly a third, with Aug 11 the busiest day since Jun 5.”
That calculation describes market performance rather than network health, and the simultaneous increase in address activity offers no direct evidence that heavier ledger use will reverse the price trend.
The split indicates that activity increased on the XRP Ledger without a comparable rise in newly created addresses. That pattern supports a narrower conclusion than broad adoption claims: ledger engagement strengthened during August, while the available measure showed virtually no expansion in new-address formation.
Address Data Shows Use Without Account Growth
Daily active addresses averaged about 35,700 from Aug. 1 through Aug. 12, compared with approximately 26,400 throughout July, an increase of nearly 35%. Santiment defines daily active addresses as unique addresses participating in transactions during a day, making the measure an indicator of network use rather than a direct count of people.
New addresses averaged approximately 2,260 per day in August, almost matching July’s 2,270, even as Aug. 11 produced the busiest active-address reading since June 5. The gap underscores a limitation of public blockchain data: address activity does not translate directly into unique users.
Large-holder data presents another form of activity during the downturn, although it measures balances rather than new participation or transaction frequency. An Aug. 12 analysis found that XRP wallets holding at least 1 million tokens increased by 32 over three months as the token’s market capitalization declined 29% during the same period.
Institutional Access Grows While Adoption Evidence Stays Mixed
Corporate use cases also remain distinct from Santiment’s August address figures and cannot explain the short-term increase without transaction-level attribution. Anodos Finance co-founder and CEO Panos Mekras described XRP as a treasury and payment asset, stating that his company has bought, held, and used XRP for employee payments since 2023.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has separately outlined an institutional opportunity across businesses that handle about $16 trillion in annual payments and clearing activity. Garlinghouse said digital assets represented close to zero percent of those flows, framing the figure as potential market reach rather than completed XRP transaction volume.
Regulated derivatives have broadened professional access to XRP even as the token’s spot price has remained under pressure. CME Group’s continuous crypto trading schedule launched with Ripple Prime as a clearing and financing partner, while XRP futures previously crossed $1 billion in open interest within three months.
The institutional, treasury, and large-wallet developments show several channels of XRP engagement, yet none converts August’s active-address increase into a verified count of new users. Santiment’s new-address average supplies the clearest boundary: roughly 2,260 addresses appeared daily through Aug. 12, about 10 fewer than July’s corresponding average. As of writing, XRP is trading at $1.008.
