The average amount of value being transferred over the XRP network has shot up this week, in part due to a large transfer from Ripple to its co-founder Jed McCaleb, who is no longer with the company.
According to Coin Metrics, the average value transfer over the XRP network last week rose to $143 million, up 63% on the previous week.
This suggests that more people are using the cryptocurrency, perhaps through the use of Ripple’s xRapid platform—that only uses XRP—which launched in October, last year.
At the same time, the total amount of daily fees averaged—over the week—$189. That’s $1.32 for every million dollars moved.
One of the reasons behind the increase in transaction volume was Ripple’s payment of $26.3 million to McCaleb. After McCaleb left Ripple, he signed an agreement limiting the amount of XRP he was allowed to sell, and Ripple took charge of a large amount of the coins. This recent transfer was to provide him with more of his XRP that he is able to sell on the open market, up to 750 million XRP ($195 million) per year.
However, the single transaction only accounts for 2.6% of the increase in weekly volume, suggesting that something else is pushing it up.