XRP holders have spent years waiting for the kind of breakout that turns patience into confidence. But a recent message from XRP analyst Bird cuts through the usual price talk with a more uncomfortable point: tokens do not go on a price rally by themselves. Holders who do not understand this may be waiting for a rally driver that they themselves are failing to build.

The Lesson Every XRP Holder Must Understand

Blockchain history does not leave much room for debate on the point of price appreciation. The chains that generated the most price appreciation in the past few years, Solana, BNB, and even Ethereum in its various breakout phases, shared a common precondition. Their ecosystems were alive before their price actions went vertical. 

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Memecoins built on those blockchain networks spread across social media, NFT collections traded hands constantly, and decentralized applications accumulated real users. The native token, in each case, was not leading the activity. It was responding to it. According to Bird, this is what every XRP holder must understand clearly. 

XRP has been treated as something to hold and wait on, with the bigger story based on regulation, Ripple partnerships, and acquisitions. Bird is pushing a different idea: that being bullish on XRP should also mean being bullish on the XRP Ledger itself. In other words, memes, NFTs, swaps, builders, dApps, and actual onchain activity are part of how a blockchain ecosystem proves that its native asset has real economic gravity.

Bird noted that this has been proven over and over, and we saw it on XRPL in Nov ’24 too. Interestingly, Ripple’s own Q1 2025 XRP Markets Report said XRPL went through a clear cooldown after its strong Q4 2024 run, with transactions down 37.06% quarter over quarter and new wallets down 40.28%.

How Does This Affect XRPL’s Infrastructure?

The irony of the current moment is that the XRP Ledger is, by many technical measures, more capable than it has ever been. XRPL developers and validators have recently pushed some institutional DeFi building blocks, including permissioned domains, credential-based access, the token Escrow (XLS-85) amendment, and the XLS-65/66 lending protocol, all of which are designed to make the network viable for regulated financial activity.

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Holding, for many XRP holders, is seen as the primary act of support, a vote of confidence in the asset expressed through patience and conviction. But holding alone does not lead to activity on the XRP Ledger, and it does not create the kind of explosive price movement these same holders are expecting. 

Analysts like Bird believe that real engagement matters more, encouraging users to interact with the network by moving XRP onchain, swapping, minting, trading, and exploring all the offerings of the XRPL ecosystem. As he puts it, “you don’t understand XRPL until you use it.”

Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com