XRP Slips 1.3% as AI Payments Cross 12 Million and Whales Pull 301 Million Tokens Off Exchanges

XRPL AI Hub passes 12 million AI-driven transactions while large holders withdraw 301 million tokens from exchanges; XRP trades at $1.50.

Two very different forces are shaping the XRP Ledger this week. On one side, autonomous software agents are racking up transactions at a record pace; on the other, large holders are quietly moving coins away from trading venues — a combination that leaves the token trading at $1.50, down 1.3% on the day.

AI Agents Find a Home on the Ledger

The XRPL AI Hub reported Monday that it has now processed 12 million AI-driven transactions. The milestone reflects growing use of the network by autonomous programs that pay for data and inference services in tiny increments directly on-chain. According to Ayo Akinyele, engineering lead at RippleX, activity measured on a seven-day average has climbed past 450,000 transactions per day.

Settlement for these operations typically takes three to five seconds. While XRP remains the primary asset, the dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD is increasingly part of the mix. Cumulative volume routed through the hub stands at 6,885 XRP and 10,744 RLUSD. That stablecoin usage — along with the fact that tokens can circulate multiple times — tempers the direct read-through to demand for the native token.

Even with today's modest decline, the price sits roughly 17% above its 200-day moving average of $1.28, suggesting the medium-term trend remains intact.

A 2027 Blueprint: $30 Billion in Tokenized Assets

Management is tying these early milestones to far bigger ambitions. Speaking at a conference in Seoul on Saturday, Ripple President Monica Long outlined plans to grow the value of tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger to $30 billion by 2027.

That target implies a sharp acceleration. Real-world assets on the ledger currently total about $6 billion. In 2025, the segment expanded from $100 million to $1 billion. Long also projected that AI agents will drive at least 100 million transactions by 2027.

Separately, the community of lending partner Clearpool voted 97.16% in favor of an expansion onto the XRP Ledger. The infrastructure is intended to support institutional lending, with loans primarily denominated in RLUSD.

Seoul Summit Puts Asia Expansion — and Bank Pilots — in Focus

Regional growth was another theme in Seoul, where Ripple unveiled XRP Asia to deepen ties across the Asia-Pacific. Several South Korean institutions appeared alongside the company, including Jeonbuk Bank, Woori Bank, Kyobo Securities and Kbank.

These firms are at various stages of testing or deploying Ripple's products. Jeonbuk Bank is using the payments software for cross-border transfers, while Kbank is running remittance trials toward Asia and the Middle East.

For traders, the key question is which assets actually move in these bank transactions. Ripple's software can settle in fiat, RLUSD or XRP — meaning a partnership only translates into rising demand for the native token once it is contractually designated and used as the settlement currency.

Whales Withdraw 301 Million Tokens From Exchanges

Meanwhile, on-chain flows tell a story of their own. Media reports indicate that on September 29, market participants pulled a total of 301 million tokens off major trading venues in multiple transfers of more than one million units each. Binance, Coinbase, Bybit and Bitget were among the exchanges affected.

Large withdrawals of this kind are often read as a strategic retreat by bigger holders, though whether they represent genuine accumulation or simply transfers into private custody arrangements has not been confirmed. Either way, such heavy outflows provide meaningful relief to the sell side by reducing the supply immediately available on exchanges.

Evernorth Nears Nasdaq Debut as ETF Flows Turn Mixed

Institutional players are gaining prominence in parallel. Shareholders of Armada Acquisition Corp. II approved a merger with Evernorth Holdings on Thursday. The combined company is expected to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN from October 8, following a completion anticipated for October 7. Evernorth plans to hold roughly 473 million XRP when the deal closes.

US spot ETFs tracking the cryptocurrency present a more uneven picture. Net inflows for the trading week through October 2 reached $4.74 million, but outflows at the end of the week weighed on the tally after the Bitwise XRP ETF recorded $3.28 million in redemptions on Friday. The choppy capital flows underscore a wait-and-see stance among institutional investors: fresh money is entering structured products even as parts of the market use interim rallies for selective profit-taking.

Two Protocol Upgrades Target October 8–9 Activation

Technical changes are also moving closer on the network. The Permission Delegation and Batch amendments are targeting possible activation on October 8 and 9. Earlier delays in validator majorities had forced a reset of the required timelines.

Batch would allow up to eight transactions to be bundled and transmitted in a single step. Permission Delegation lets accounts hand off limited tasks without exposing the master key. On September 25, developers had already resolved security-related protocol issues with the xrpld 3.4.1 update, without any disruption to network operations.