XRP Ledger Payments Volume Crashes 72%: Is This a Warning Sign for XRP?

Activity on the $XRP Ledger just dropped sharply. Payment volume, which tracks $XRP sent from one account to another, fell to 119.5 million $XRP on October 17. That is a 72.3% drop in a single day. The 30-day average sits at 629.3 million, so the latest print is far below normal. The all-time high is 7 billion, which shows how small today's number is by comparison.

Price has no substance

Data for October 18 shows approximately 37.5 million $XRP so far, down another 68.6%. The day is not finished, so this figure will likely rise. Even so, the direction is clear. Over the past year, daily volume typically stayed between 300 million and 1 billion, with spikes to 2.5 billion in November and February. Readings near 100 million are rare.

One weak day does not establish a trend. Payment volume jumps around a lot, and quiet weekends often deliver low numbers. Both drops landed on a Friday and Saturday. Still, the timing matters because price is also under pressure.

Rally has no fuel left

$XRP trades near $1.30 after falling from a September high around $1.66. It has now slipped beneath the 50, 100, and 200-day moving averages, which sit between $1.34 and $1.38. Those lines now act as resistance. The RSI is near 40, which indicates weak momentum but not an oversold market. Trading volume has also dwindled since the August spike.

The nearest support is the $1.25 to $1.27 area, where buyers stepped in during mid-September and again this week. A close beneath that zone would put $1.15 in view, and the $1.00 base from August after that. For bulls, the first target is a move back above $1.34 to $1.38. Without that, rallies are likely to fail.

The price drop and the weak chart point the same way. Fewer coins are moving, and fewer buyers are pushing the price up. If ledger activity returns to the 500 million level within the next few days, the drop was noise. If it remains low while $XRP holds below the moving averages, the risk of a break beneath $1.25 grows.