Have you ever watched a coin that used to make headlines almost every week suddenly go quiet? That’s exactly what’s happening with XRP right now. After the massive relief rally when people thought the legal cloud was finally lifting, the price just… stopped. It’s been bouncing inside a frustratingly tight box for over a month, and the network itself looks emptier than it has in ages.
I’ve been following Ripple and the XRP Ledger for years, and I have to admit—this kind of lull feels different. It’s not just profit-taking after a pump. The on-chain numbers are screaming that real usage is taking a nap. But at the same time, some of the development metrics are flashing bright green. So which side is going to win? Let’s dig in.
What’s Really Happening on the XRP Ledger Right Now
The simplest way to understand the current mood is to look at daily active addresses. Back in March, when everyone was convinced XRP was about to blast past its all-time high, we regularly saw 300,000+ unique addresses interacting with the ledger in a single day. The absolute peak hit over 612,000 on March 19. Fast forward to early May 2025 and the average has collapsed to roughly 40,000. That’s the lowest reading since November last year.
Think about that for a second. We’re talking about a drop of almost 90 % in day-to-day participation. Retail traders aren’t the only ones stepping away—whales are quieter too. Transactions worth more than $100,000 used to spike above 1,500 on busy days. Now we’re lucky to see 1,000.
When both retail and institutional activity fade at the same time, price usually feels the pain. And that’s exactly what the chart shows.
The Price Box Nobody Can Escape
Since early April, XRP has been trapped between roughly $2.03 and $2.30. Every attempt to push higher gets sold, every dip below the range finds buyers, but nothing sticks. As I write this, the price sits around $2.19—basically the middle of nowhere.
Volume has dried up along with the on-chain metrics. The 24-hour trading volume still looks decent on paper (over $6 billion), but a huge chunk of that is wash trading on perpetual futures platforms. Spot demand—the kind that actually matters for sustainable moves—feels anemic.
Low network activity plus low spot volume is the recipe for prolonged consolidation. We’ve seen this movie before with XRP.
Technical Picture: Neutral at Best, Bearish at Worst
Let’s talk indicators because they’re not painting a pretty picture either.
- The 50-day moving average is flattening and about to roll over.
- The 100-day and 200-day are still sloping down gently.
- RSI sits at 44.7—neither oversold nor overbought, just boring.
- Stochastic RSI is deep in oversold territory, but it’s been stuck there before without any meaningful bounce.
- MACD shows fading bullish momentum and a potential bearish crossover coming soon.
The only real support right now is the 200-day EMA lurking around $1.99. If the current range breaks to the downside on expanding volume, that’s the next logical stop. And yes, a move there would shake out a lot of weak hands who bought the breakout above $2 expecting fireworks.
On the flip side, a clean break above $2.30 with rising volume could target $2.45 pretty quickly. That zone rejected price hard back in March, so taking it out would flip the structure bullish again. But honestly? The probability feels lower than most XRP holders want to admit right now.
The One Metric That Keeps Me From Writing XRP Off Completely
Here’s where it gets interesting. While usage metrics are in the gutter, development activity has actually exploded higher. Over the past 30 days, GitHub contributions to the XRPL repositories are up almost 200 %. That’s not marketing fluff—that’s real code being written, reviewed, and merged.
In the last week alone we’ve seen two notable projects announce launches on the ledger: a tokenized index fund and a decentralized lending protocol. Ripple itself closed the acquisition of institutional prime broker Hidden Road, which could bring serious liquidity bridges between traditional finance and the XRPL ecosystem.
I’ve learned over the years that when development spikes during periods of low price and low usage, it often foreshadows a major shift. The network gets upgraded quietly while nobody is paying attention, and then when the macro environment turns friendly again, adoption comes roaring back.
So… Are We in Accumulation Territory or a Slow Bleed?
Both, probably.
If you’re a long-term believer in Ripple’s vision—cross-border payments, tokenization of real-world assets, central bank digital currency infrastructure—then this quiet period is likely the deepest discount you’ll see for a while. The legal overhang that crushed sentiment for years is mostly gone, and the tech keeps improving.
But if you’re trading short to medium term, there’s no denying the chart looks heavy. Low network activity tends to create a negative feedback loop: less usage → worse sentiment → lower price → even less usage. Breaking that cycle usually requires either a macro catalyst (Bitcoin ripping higher tends to help) or a fundamental spark from the ecosystem itself.
Right now we don’t have either.
What I’m Watching Over the Next Few Weeks
- Can daily active addresses stabilize above 50,000 or do we grind lower toward 30,000?
- Will any of the newly announced DeFi protocols actually attract meaningful TVL?
- Does Bitcoin manage to hold $85,000+ and drag the rest of the market up with it?
- Any surprise announcements from Ripple—stablecoin launch timing, new ODL corridors, etc.?
Until at least one of those things happens, I expect XRP to keep chopping sideways and frustrating everyone. That’s just the nature of consolidation phases. They feel endless when you’re stuck in them, but they always end eventually.
The big question is whether this consolidation resolves with a bullish breakout toward $3+ or a bearish breakdown that retests the yearly open around $1.80. My gut says the development activity and institutional positioning tilt the odds toward the former—but the on-chain reality says we’re not there yet.
Either way, patience is the name of the game right now. XRP has survived worse. Whether it thrives again soon… that’s the part nobody knows for sure.
One thing I do know? When the ledger finally wakes up, the move tends to be violent. And I’d rather be early than late.
