Ripple executives talk up XRP Ledger's agentic payments after 1 million transactions
RippleX's engineering head told The Block that AI-agent transactions on the XRP Ledger, having just passed 1 million, could reach 10 million or even 100 million within a couple of years — a projection from an interested party, not a milestone reached.
Agent-initiated payments on the XRP Ledger have passed 1 million, and RippleX's head of engineering expects that number to climb fast — though the forecast comes entirely from people with a stake in the ledger's success.
Ayo Akinyele, RippleX Head of Engineering, told The Block he expects the count to "blast through 10 million ... [and] may even get to 100 million within the next couple of years." The 1 million figure and the projection both come from Ripple-affiliated sources; The Block did not cite independent on-chain confirmation of the total, and the "recently" timeframe for crossing 1 million wasn't specified.
"Agentic" payments are transactions initiated by AI software acting for a user, rather than approved manually one at a time. The pitch is that AI agents get their own on-chain wallets to pay for APIs, compute and data automatically. Akinyele leaned on XRPL's settlement speed — "three to five seconds" — and predictable transaction costs as the selling points.
Ripple recently joined the x402 Foundation as a "premier member," alongside Coinbase, Circle, AWS, Google, Mastercard, Stripe and Visa. x402, originally built by Coinbase, lets AI agents pay automatically for APIs and online services. Akinyele called the relationship "strategic" because it lets Ripple "shape the governance" and "technical aspects" of the emerging agentic economy.
As for what agents actually buy today: most XRPL activity so far has been payments for APIs and data, according to t54, an infrastructure startup that is itself backed by Ripple. Co-founder Chandler Fang said t54 is "in the process of onboarding real-world merchants" to let agents buy physical goods — "one of the next major areas of growth."
Key facts
- Agentic transactions on XRP Ledger recently passed 1 million (The Block, citing RippleX).
- RippleX's Ayo Akinyele projects 10 million, possibly 100 million, "within the next couple of years" (The Block interview).
- Cited settlement time: 3–5 seconds (Akinyele).
- Ripple joined the x402 Foundation as a premier member, with Coinbase, Circle, AWS, Google, Mastercard, Stripe and Visa; x402 was built by Coinbase (The Block).
- Most current XRPL agentic activity is payments for APIs and data, per t54, a Ripple-backed startup (The Block).
The real-world read
Strip out the forecast and the news is narrow: a still-young ledger crossed 1 million agent-initiated transactions, a figure sourced to Ripple itself. Everything eye-catching here — the "10 million," the "100 million," the "next couple of years" — is a prediction from a RippleX employee whose job is to grow XRPL usage, not a result. The one supporting data point about what agents are buying comes from t54, which is Ripple-backed, so treat it as an interested read on Ripple's own ecosystem. The x402 membership is real and notable given the company it keeps, but "premier member" is a paid-tier label, and joining a foundation is not the same as driving volume. Nothing here has been independently verified, and no one disclosed how the 1 million transactions break down or how many distinct agents produced them.
This is not financial advice.
Sources
- The Block, RT Watson (2026-07-21) — sole source; interviews with RippleX's Ayo Akinyele and t54's Chandler Fang, plus the x402 Foundation membership detail. Reputable secondary outlet; note that all figures and projections trace to Ripple or Ripple-backed parties. The Block discloses Foresight Ventures as a majority investor.