In today’s Ripple news, the XRP Ledger recorded 1,434,517 independent AI agent transactions as of July 22, 2026, an increase of 127% since the x402 protocol was included in the ledger on June 9.
129 merchants settled 4,463.24 XRP and 1,895.14 RLUSD through machine-to-machine payment channels, and the number of active addresses reached an all-time high of 8.45 million, according to a report by CoinMarketCap.
The proxy economy on the XRP Ledger is on the rise.
More than 1.4 million proxy transactions have already been settled through t54’s x402 broker on XRPL.
Track everything on https://t.co/gwLZblD0wf https://t.co/3mrT6clHe8 pic.twitter.com/ahES65Af9Z
— t54.ai (@t54ai) July 22, 2026
It represents the first sustained evidence that a purpose-built agent payments layer on the public ledger can attract merchant adoption and generate measurable settlement volume within weeks of launch, regardless of speculative trading activity.
This drop in XRPL data comes as XRP USD is down -0.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $1.12. Holding support at $1.10 is crucial here for any possibility of a move towards $1.20. The daily trading volume is $924 million.
x402 Protocol and XRPL AI Hub: How the infrastructure stack works
The mechanism works as follows: The x402 protocol uses a HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response, allowing AI agents to pay other agents or services for compute, data, or API access without manual wallet management or human logout.
Settlement on the XRP Ledger takes place in seconds, with fees burned on each transaction – making each proxy payment a marginal reduction in circulating supply.
RippleX’s head of engineering, J. Ayo Akinyele, described the current volume as an early baseline, predicting that the network could process between 10 million and 100 million agent transactions within two years.
The publication of the x402 protocol on June 9 was preceded by Ripple’s release of the XRPL AI Starter Kit on June 10, a developer toolkit that enables agents to process payments via the ledger, including integration with the Claude API.
Ripple has since joined the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation umbrella and expanded the XRPL AI Hub — infrastructure that provides a dashboard for tracking real-time x402 payment activity, developer tools, and AI agent integration support. The center was created with support from Ripple developers and the XRP Ledger Foundation.
XRP settlement volume via x402 has increased by 289% since the launch of the XRPL AI Starter Kit, according to source boerse-global.de. The parallel role that RLUSD plays in these machine-to-machine payments reflects a deliberate dual-asset strategy: XRP handles the settlement of native cryptocurrencies, while RLUSD handles counterparties that require a stablecoin denomination.
Monthly transaction volume on the XRP Ledger has increased twelvefold since the launch of RLUSD, Ripple Vice President Fiona Murray noted at the WebX conference in mid-July.
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Institutional signals are different from Ripple network activity
On July 20, S&P Dow Jones and Pantera Capital launched the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index, which includes 18 assets selected based on market cap (minimum $500 million) and liquidity. Notably, XRP was excluded without explanation. S&P’s Cathy Clay noted that the index aims to reward clear economic activity rather than just price momentum.
The focus has shifted from whether the XRP Ledger (XRPL) can generate transaction volume — recently confirmed at 1.43 million payments — to whether the revenue recognition framework for digital assets will adapt quickly enough to address the protocol’s utility.
Whale accumulation data reveals that wallets holding 100,000 to 100 million XRP increased their positions by 2.8% in five weeks, while large address flows into Binance reached their lowest levels since January 2025. Since November 2025, cumulative inflows into XRP spot ETFs have totaled around $1.5 billion.
The gap between XRPL transaction standards and its exclusion from institutional standards may narrow if the x402 multi-chain foundation’s efforts are successful. By May 2026, x402 transactions across 14 blockchains total more than 160 million, and need to produce revenue streams that meet S&P’s criteria for the index.
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Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to provide accurate and timely information but should not be considered financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify the information yourself and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
Daniel Francis is a technical writer and Web3 educator specializing in macroeconomics and DeFi mechanics. A crypto native since 2017, Daniel brings his background in cross-chain analytics to author evidence-based reports and detailed guides. It is certified by the Blockchain Council and is dedicated to providing “information gain” that cuts through the market noise to find blockchain’s real-world utility.
