Ripple’s designated “North Star,” XRP, is capturing attention. Data from t54.ai indicates that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has processed 10 million AI-agent payments, a milestone highlighted on X by RippleX Head of Engineering Ayo Akinyele. This achievement was reached on October 1 as the wider cryptocurrency market declined due to rising U.S. borrowing costs.
Agent Payments on XRPL
Operating as an open, HTTP-native standard, the x402 payment protocol enables autonomous AI agents to discover and pay for data access, inference, credit, and financial APIs using either XRP or RLUSD without requiring human intervention. XRPL has logged 10.8 million transactions, expanding from 1 million to 10 million payments in less than three months.
Transaction activity currently averages 500,000 daily payments spread across 2,287 active payable services and APIs. Meanwhile, RLUSD maintains a $2.49 billion market capitalization, and t54 functions as a neutral trust layer supported by Franklin Templeton and Ripple.
10M+ x402 payments have now settled on the XRP Ledger, less than 3 months after hitting the 1M milestone.
The volume is still dominated by AI agents paying for inference and data, but we’re starting to see a broader range of x402 services show up across financial data, risk,…
— J. Ayo Akinyele (@ja_akinyele) October 1, 2026
XRP Price, Escrow and Tokenization
XRP dropped 1.28% to $1.4928, accompanied by 3.28% market dominance and $6.22 million in liquidations. The broader market overlooked a pre-scheduled escrow release totaling 1 billion XRP—valued at approximately $1.49 billion—distributed in tranches of 100 million, 200 million, 300 million, and 400 million. Total escrow reserves hold 31.845 billion XRP, while 68.13 billion tokens are in circulation.
Additionally, a pilot project with Brazilian depository CSD BR is creating digital replicas of BTG Pactual fund shares on the XRPL, aiming for $15 billion in tokenized assets by the end of the year, though CSD BR’s official ledgers remain the legal registry. Further market backing comes from inclusion in the Cryptex ETF.
Bitcoin and Macroeconomic Pressure
Bitcoin slipped back to its September close of $83,600 after failing to maintain levels above $85,500, following an PCE inflation reading of 3.4% that missed forecasts. It currently changes hands near $83,975.76 with 58.74% market dominance, while Ethereum trades close to $2,706.26 with an 11.50% share. Macroeconomic pressures include the 10-year Treasury yield climbing past 5.3%—its highest mark since 2002—alongside a second-quarter GDP growth revision of +2.2%, expensive oil prices, and the national budget deficit.
CoinGlass data reported $290.63 million in total liquidations across 78,781 traders, consisting of $147.48 million in longs and $143.15 million in shorts. Spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced $148,690,000 in outflows, concluding a nine-day inflow streak, while Ethereum ETFs shed $59,580,000. On the analyst front, Citigroup revised its 12-month price targets upward to $113,000 for Bitcoin and $3,028 for Ethereum.
AI Tokens and Robinhood Chain
NEAR Protocol leads the AI token sector, priced between $5.12 and $5.46 with a market capitalization of $6.7 billion to $6.8 billion. Speaking at the HOOD Summit in Houston, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev noted that Robinhood Chain, which debuted two months ago, leads developer activity driven by real-world asset products. Daily volume for both spot decentralized exchanges and perpetual futures—operating alongside Lighter—surpasses $1 billion each.
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— TimesTabloid (@TimesTabloid1) June 15, 2025
Robinhood Ventures is set to underwrite tokenized shares of private companies, scaling its offering from 200 stock tokens to several thousand. In cybersecurity developments, Transluce documented a failed attempt by an AI agent to compromise Library and Archives Canada, whereas Asymmetric Security detected automated AI model activity across a minimum of 55 websites, including those of the SEC and CDC.
Security, Regulation and Outlook
Bitcoin closed out the third quarter with a 42.71% gain, led by a 6.33% increase in September, heading into an October that historically averages an +18.52% return. Conversely, crypto hackers stole $766.49 million in September, marking a 462% surge, and BitMart disclosed a previously hidden deficit of $319.5 million dating back to 2021. Meanwhile, Commissioner Hester Peirce steps down from the SEC on October 2, just ahead of the October 20 comment deadline concerning the Regulation of Crypto Assets.
As October 2 unfolds, market watchers will track whether XRP portions return to escrow, if XRPL validator support surpasses 80% for the Batch and Permission Delegation soft forks, and whether Bitcoin can sustain its position in the 82,000 to 83,000 range.