Thomas Silkjaer, head of analytics and compliance at XRPL Foundation, hinted at interesting trends seen for XRP Ledger toward the close of 2023.
Silkjaer posted a graph showing the number of imported accounts and the amount of XRP. Quite noticeable was a significant spike in these two metrics from mid-December.
The increase in imported accounts follows developments that occurred in the XRP Ledger ecosystem at the end of 2023.
Around mid-December, Wietse Wind, an XRP Ledger developer, announced that to allow existing XRPL account owners to play around on Xahau, activating an account on Xahau using the same XRPL account (same r-address) would result in a 2 XAH balance. This would require users to import their XRPL address to Xahau.
Around the same time in December, the Xumm/Xaman 2.6.0 version was released, providing multi-network support across XRPL and Xahau and allowing users to easily switch networks with the same r-address.
XRPScan, an XRP Ledger explorer, also launched a new xApp that allowed users to import their XRPL account into Xahau and get 2 XAH for free.
Xahau is an XRPL ecosystem smart contract sidechain that incorporates XRPL capabilities while also enabling smart contracts. Xahau is secured by its native token, Xahau XRP (XAH).
On-chain data shows an increase in the volume of XRP burns since mid-December as more users opt to use the Xahau sidechain.
Aside from that, XRPL experienced spikes in various metrics, reflecting network activity as 2024 approached. The number of new accounts created spiked to a high of 20,183 on Dec. 26.
As reported, XRP Ledger (XRPL) reached an all-time high of 6.8 million transactions per day on Dec. 30. In November 2021, the previous peak was nearly 5 million transactions per day.