XRP trading remains down despite 100% stablecoin supply growth, retail participation

Stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger has surged to a new all-time high of $568 million since December 2025, a gain of more than 100%, according to data from Artemis.

Interestingly, this lands at a time when the network is also picking up more small holders, as wallet addresses holding less than 100 XRP have reached a record 5.66 million.

Coinglass’ Binance data shows open interest in XRP has dropped to about $372.6 million, the lowest reading since 2024 and far below earlier periods when open interest ran above $1.7 billion and XRP traded above $3 during stronger upside runs.

The chain itself is busier, but still, during the little strong market runs crypto has had in 2026, XRP’s open interest pushed past an average of +$1.5 to $1.7 billion, and the token did trade above $3 that one time.

Sadly, right now, that level of leveraged conviction is gone, thanks to the market swings caused by the war US and Israel started in the Middle East.

Retail XRP holders keep growing as South Korea’s stablecoin balances crash abruptly

The retail side of XRP keeps getting bigger still, with a brand new high of 5.66 million addresses and less than 100 XRP, showing that participation is widening at the lower end of the wallet base, per data from CryptoQuant.

All this is coming amid a tense time in South Korea, where stablecoin balances tied to the country’s five biggest crypto exchanges have fallen by 55% since July 2025.

On-chain data from Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX shows combined holdings dropped from $575 million in July to roughly $188 million by mid-March.

The slide picked up after the won weakened past 1,500 per dollar in mid-March and hit its lowest level against the dollar in 16 years.

That exchange rate had not been seen since the 2008 financial crisis, so yeah, traders sold USDT when the USD/KRW rate became more attractive.

South Korea is also dealing with a stock market problem though, as its blue-chip Kospi plunged 6.5% to 5,405.75, and the small-cap Kosdaq fell 5.6% to finish the session at 1,096.89.

Elsewhere, ERC20’s stablecoin active addresses went from about 85,000 in March 2025 to around 600,000 in March 2026, which is a 600% rally in what has been a steady rise since 2024, according to Artemis.

Meanwhile, in supply changes this year, USDC has led the pack with a $4.5 billion increase, the largest gain among tracked stablecoins.

USDT has gone the other way, shrinking by about $2 billion. Exchange reserves now stand at $65.37 billion, down 0.72% in the last 24 hours. Net outflows have passed $485 million, showing funds are leaving exchanges for self-custody instead of leaving the market completely.

Total stablecoin supply is now $316.45 billion, up 0.17% on the week. USDT rose 0.08% to $184.1 billion, while USDC slipped 0.22% to $79.1 billion.

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