7.79 million transactions moved just $7,722: RLUSD’s “boom” was 110 bots spamming transactions
An on-chain investigation published by Bitquery on October 19 offers a warning to anyone looking at public blockchain data: from September 19 to October 18, 110 wallets on the XRP Ledger accounted for 99.6% of RLUSD payment transactions—7.79 million transactions that transferred just $7,722 in total, averaging $0.001 each, with the funds ultimately flowing into three collection addresses.
The most extreme day was September 26: of 573,000 payments, only 388 were worth more than $1. The same group of wallets also accounted for 45.6% of all account-to-account transfers on the network that week. On the other hand, 14,600 large payments of more than $1 transferred $7.33 billion during the same period, with just 10 wallets accounting for $6.05 billion. Real money and fake activity came from completely different groups. And the cost of inflating the numbers was absurdly low: 8.6 million transactions incurred fees of just 495 XRP (about $648).
The lesson is simple: when looking at a public blockchain, don’t just count transactions—look at the money. Transaction counts can be inflated; value flows can’t. Next time you see “daily active users hit a new high on [a] chain,” first ask: is that real money?
$XRP #110 automated wallets accounted for 99.6% of RLUSD payments
An on-chain investigation published by Bitquery on October 19 offers a warning to anyone looking at public blockchain data: from September 19 to October 18, 110 wallets on the XRP Ledger accounted for 99.6% of RLUSD payment transactions—7.79 million transactions that transferred just $7,722 in total, averaging $0.001 each, with the funds ultimately flowing into three collection addresses.
The most extreme day was September 26: of 573,000 payments, only 388 were worth more than $1. The same group of wallets also accounted for 45.6% of all account-to-account transfers on the network that week. On the other hand, 14,600 large payments of more than $1 transferred $7.33 billion during the same period, with just 10 wallets accounting for $6.05 billion. Real money and fake activity came from completely different groups. And the cost of inflating the numbers was absurdly low: 8.6 million transactions incurred fees of just 495 XRP (about $648).
The lesson is simple: when looking at a public blockchain, don’t just count transactions—look at the money. Transaction counts can be inflated; value flows can’t. Next time you see “daily active users hit a new high on [a] chain,” first ask: is that real money?
$XRP #110 automated wallets accounted for 99.6% of RLUSD payments