Ripple CTO Emeritus Challenges XRP Ledger Ghost Chain Claim

TLDR

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Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz rejected claims that XRP Ledger operates as a “ghost chain.”
Schwartz argued that XRPL’s low fees naturally encourage both high-value and low-value transaction activity.
XRP Ledger’s distributed RWA market capitalization currently stands near $458.37 million.
Represented assets on XRPL have reached about $4.06 billion in value.
Agentic transactions on XRP Ledger have surpassed 4.8 million as AI agents use XRP and RLUSD for payments.
Schwartz also reported two brief peer-count and latency disruptions that were not specific to XRPL.

Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has rejected claims that the XRP Ledger operates as a “ghost chain.” The criticism focused on automated activity and the share of transactions linked to human payments.

An X user known as “scams are bad” claimed bots and automated accounts drove much of the network’s activity. The user also claimed real human payments represented less than 1% of transactions over eight years.

Ripple CTO Emeritus Responds to XRPL Criticism

Schwartz, an original XRP Ledger architect, called the argument a “weird thing to say.” He pointed to the network’s low transaction costs and said users can conduct both useful and low-value activities cheaply.

This is such a weird thing to say. Yes, it's very cheap. Yes, you can use it for useful things and useless things. If it were more expensive and fewer people did low-value things on it, would that somehow make it better?

— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) September 10, 2026

He also questioned whether higher fees would make XRPL better by reducing low-value transactions. The critic later said the post was intended to show the network’s “usage breakdown,” rather than dispute that activity exists.

XRP Ledger activity has expanded beyond payments as institutions explore decentralized finance services. Tokenized real-world assets, stablecoins, and decentralized liquidity have become part of the network’s growing range of uses.

The XRPL currently holds a distributed RWA market capitalization of about $458.37 million. This figure excludes represented RWAs and non-yield-bearing stablecoins. Represented asset value stands at about $4.06 billion.

AI Agent Transactions Rise on XRPL

Agentic finance has also added another source of XRP Ledger activity. Total agentic transactions have passed 4.8 million as AI agents use the network to pay for digital services.

These services include token analysis, crypto intelligence, market research, and prediction-market projections. AI agents can make payments through XRP or Ripple USD, also known as RLUSD. This activity adds another category beyond traditional person-to-person payments.

Ripple CTO Emeritus Schwartz separately provided an update about his XRPL hub. He said the hub had operated normally apart from two events during the previous two days.

During those periods, the peer count declined while some network latencies increased. Schwartz linked the events to minor network disruptions rather than problems specific to the XRP Ledger. His update came as discussion around XRPL activity continued across social media.

The debate centers on how XRP Ledger transactions should be measured when automated activity forms part of network usage. Schwartz’s response focused on low fees and the range of activities that the ledger can support. Current RWA and agentic transaction data show that XRPL activity extends across several use cases beyond direct human payments.

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