XRP’s On-Chain Boom Fails to Break the $1.30 Ceiling as Ripple Shifts Focus to Africa

XRP network sees record transactions but price remains at $1.21, down 35% YTD. Ripple invests in Flutterwave for Africa payments, while upgrade cuts node memory and whale holdings rise to 74%.

The XRP Ledger logged 769,646 transactions on June 16 – the second consecutive day above 750,000 – yet the token’s price remains stubbornly stuck at $1.21, down roughly 35% since the start of the year. The disconnect between network activity and market price has rarely been starker. Roughly 427,000 of those transactions were pure payment settlements, while a significant portion came from decentralized exchange activity within the ledger itself, pointing to rising demand for on-chain liquidity.

Each transaction on the XRP Ledger burns a small fee in XRP, permanently removing tokens from circulation. The more the network is used, the greater the deflationary pressure – but so far that structural tailwind has failed to lift the spot price. For traders, the key question is whether June’s surge in volume proves lasting or fades as a one-off spike.

Ripple, the company behind the XRP ecosystem, is meanwhile making a bold bet on Africa. The firm has invested in the fintech unicorn Flutterwave, a payment platform valued at $3.2 billion that operates across more than 35 African countries and has processed over one billion transactions since 2016. The partnership aims to build a new cross?border payment infrastructure on the XRP Ledger, with the stablecoin RLUSD as the primary settlement asset. The move targets the high cost and slow speed of traditional bank transfers in the region.

In parallel, the XRP Ledger has undergone a major technical upgrade. Version 3.2.0 renames the core software from “rippled” to “xrpld,” a deliberate step by Ripple to distance itself from the blockchain’s identity. The update cuts node memory requirements by up to 40% and caused only an 18?minute outage during rollout.

Whale investors are taking advantage of the current market environment. Addresses holding large amounts of XRP now control 74.1% of the total circulating supply, having accumulated heavily over the past six months. Meanwhile, US?based XRP exchange?traded funds have seen steady inflows, with cumulative volume reaching $1.44 billion.

Technically, XRP recently rejected resistance around $1.30, a level that coincides closely with the widely watched 50?day moving average. If the token loses its next support zone, a drop toward $1.14 is possible. A breakout above $1.30 would open the path to $1.45. Broader market attention is now fixed on the Federal Reserve, where new chair Kevin Warsh is expected to deliver a rate decision soon. Analysts see a maximum rate of 3.75% as the most likely outcome, a scenario that could influence appetite for risk assets like XRP.