XRP Trading Slump Defies 100% Stablecoin Supply Growth & Surging Retail Participation

XRP faces a stark divergence as network activity and small-holder adoption hit record highs while leveraged trading conviction collapses. Open interest has plummeted to $372.6 million—its lowest level since 2024—a dramatic retreat from the $1.7 billion peaks that previously propelled the token above $3. This erosion of bullish leverage is directly attributed to severe market volatility triggered by the ongoing US-Israel conflict in the Middle East.

Retail XRP holders keep growing as South Korea’s stablecoin balances crash abruptly

The retail side of XRP keeps getting bigger still, with a brand new high of 5.66 million addresses and less than 100 XRP, showing that participation is widening at the lower end of the wallet base, per data from CryptoQuant.

All this is coming amid a tense time in South Korea, where stablecoin balances tied to the country’s five biggest crypto exchanges have fallen by 55% since July 2025.

On-chain data from Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX shows combined holdings dropped from $575 million in July to roughly $188 million by mid-March.

The slide picked up after the won weakened past 1,500 per dollar in mid-March and hit its lowest level against the dollar in 16 years.

That exchange rate had not been seen since the 2008 financial crisis, so yeah, traders sold USDT when the USD/KRW rate became more attractive.

South Korea is also dealing with a stock market problem though, as its blue-chip Kospi plunged 6.5% to 5,405.75, and the small-cap Kosdaq fell 5.6% to finish the session at 1,096.89.

Elsewhere, ERC20’s stablecoin active addresses went from about 85,000 in March 2025 to around 600,000 in March 2026, which is a 600% rally in what has been a steady rise since 2024, according to Artemis.

Meanwhile, in supply changes this year, USDC has led the pack with a $4.5 billion increase, the largest gain among tracked stablecoins.

USDT has gone the other way, shrinking by about $2 billion. Exchange reserves now stand at $65.37 billion, down 0.72% in the last 24 hours. Net outflows have passed $485 million, showing funds are leaving exchanges for self-custody instead of leaving the market completely.

Total stablecoin supply is now $316.45 billion, up 0.17% on the week. USDT rose 0.08% to $184.1 billion, while USDC slipped 0.22% to $79.1 billion.

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