XRP finds itself at a pivotal moment, navigating a stark contrast between promising short-term technical indicators and a deeply concerning decline in its fundamental utility. While market sentiment hints at immediate price gains, a critical dive into on-chain activity reveals a significant challenge to the asset's long-term viability.
Technical Momentum Builds for a Potential Breakout
From a technical standpoint, XRP has been displaying renewed strength, with its price hovering around $2.87 and eyeing a potential breakout above the $2.91 resistance level. Should buying volume persist, the asset could push towards the $3.00-$3.08 range, where the 50-day moving average acts as a key resistance. The $2.77 support level remains robust, and a subtle shift in market sentiment towards the positive suggests that bulls are regaining ground, painting an optimistic picture for short-term traders.
Alarming Drop in Core Payments Activity
Beneath this surface-level optimism lies a far more troubling fundamental trend: XRP's primary utility, payments activity, has plummeted by over 70% in the last month. Data from the XRP Ledger indicates that daily transactions between accounts dropped from over 750,000 in early August to a mere 221,000 by September 8, 2025. Unlike other cryptocurrencies with diverse ecosystems, XRP's core value proposition lies in fast and inexpensive account-to-account transactions. This drastic decline in its key metric seriously questions the token's fundamental usefulness and suggests reduced remittance activity, waning institutional interest, or a shift towards alternative solutions.
A Critical Juncture: Speculation Versus Utility
This divergence presents XRP with a critical turning point. While short-term price spikes might be fueled by speculation and technical breakouts, the sustainability of any rally is fundamentally compromised by the drastic decline in on-chain utility. Without a resurgence in real-world demand and actual network usage, XRP risks evolving into a purely speculative asset rather than one driven by its intended payment functionality. Though the immediate trading setup appears favorable, the stark warning from its fundamental metrics cannot be ignored.
