Ripple: Legal troubles no bar as XRP Ledger grows in Q1

• According to a new report, XRPL saw traction in Q1.
• Only its NFT vertical experienced a decline.

Despite the prolonged legal battle between Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the XRP ledger [XRPL] experienced significant growth across its ecosystem during the first quarter of 2023, Messari found in a new report. 

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Titled “State of XRP Ledger Q1 2023,” the data analytics firm noted that XRPL saw increased network activity, improved protocol revenue, and a jump in XRP’s value in the first 90 days of the year.

Between 1 January and 31 March, various network activity metrics demonstrated growth. For example, the count of daily active addresses and daily transactions on the XRPL network rallied by 13.9% and 10.7%, respectively, during the period under review. 

According to Messari, the rise in total active addresses on XRPL was mainly driven by a 17.1% growth in receiving addresses, which surged from 47,000 to 55,000 between January and March. Interestingly, even with 141,000 accounts deleted during that period, the total number of addresses on the chain continued to rise throughout Q1.

On why XRPL experienced a surge in network activity, the report stated:

“The network’s activity surges were generally caused by senders distributing tokens to large groups of previously inactive recipients. The senders were likely exchanges and custody solutions, as they generate many active receiving addresses while only being counted as a single (or few) active sender addresses.”

Further, regarding protocol revenue, XRPL’s quarterly revenue increased by 34.4% in Q1. The uptick in revenue came despite a 21% decline in average transaction fees on the chain during that period. 

As for its native token XRP, Messari found that the token’s circulating market capitalization grew by 59.9% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), reaching $27.8 billion. This increase exceeded the overall crypto market capitalization growth of 46%.

In addition, XRP’s price jumped by 55.5% from $0.35 to $0.54 in Q1, and according to the report, this was “due to the 2.8% QoQ inflation rate.”

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Despite the overall protocol growth on XRPL in Q1, its NFT vertical logged a decline. In October 2022, the XLS-20 standard was implemented, bringing standardization to NFTs on the network. This allowed for the creation of five new transaction types specifically designed to track NFT activity effectively.

There was a decline in NFT mints by 40.4%, dropping from 732,000 in Q4 to 436,000 in Q1. Additionally, the number of NFT offers accepted also saw a decrease of 25.1% quarter-over-quarter, declining from 370,000 in Q4 2022 to 277,000 in Q1 2023.