The clash played out on X on September 10, 2026, when Schwartz replied to critic @ScamDetective5, according to his public post. For related coverage, see Is ChangeNOW Legit? What the Evidence Shows in 2026.
It is a small exchange with a big subtext: how do you measure whether a blockchain is actually being used, and who gets to decide what counts as “real” activity? For related coverage, see Nasdaq Invests $100M in Kraken Parent at $21B Valuation.
What the 93% XRP Ledger Bot Transaction Claim Alleges
The accusation is blunt. The critic alleged that a tiny cluster of accounts performs almost all the work on the XRP Ledger, branding them bots and spammers and calling XRPL a “ghost chain.” For related coverage, see CLARITY Act: Democrats Push Vertical Integration Provision.
The specific figures come from crypto outlet CoinGape, which cited on-chain analytics firm Bitquery. The report claims 793 accounts generated 93.2% of XRP Ledger transactions in August 2026, per CoinGape’s write-up.
Reported transaction concentration · Unverified measurement
93.2%
Reported share of XRPL transactions attributed to 793 accounts in August 2026
The same report claims only 0.8% of ledger traffic represents real, human-scale payments after filtering out machine-driven activity, according to unconfirmed reporting attributed to Bitquery.
Here is the crucial caveat. The original Bitquery dataset, query, and methodology could not be located. The classification thresholds, the denominator, and the rules for labeling an account a bot all remain unverified.
That distinction matters. A transaction count is not a headcount. Account concentration, automation, and spam are three different things, and the raw 93% figure does not, on its own, tell you which of them you are looking at.
How Schwartz Defends the XRP Ledger
Schwartz, Ripple’s longtime CTO who posts under the handle @JoelKatz, did not attempt to debunk the statistic. He challenged the framing instead.
He acknowledged that XRPL is very cheap and that people use it for both useful and useless things. Then he flipped the argument on its head, asking whether making transactions more expensive and squeezing out low-value activity would somehow make the network better.
His full reply is worth reading in his own words:
This is such a weird thing to say. Yes, it's very cheap. Yes, you can use it for useful things and useless things. If it were more expensive and fewer people did low-value things on it, would that somehow make it better?
— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) September 10, 2026
Source: @JoelKatz on X
Note what he is and is not arguing. He is not claiming the 93% figure is false, nor confirming it. He is disputing the inference that cheap, high-volume, low-value usage is a defect rather than a feature.
This is Schwartz’s personal position, not a formal Ripple statement. He has been an active voice for XRPL before, recently backing a new XRPL meme coin in a similar defense of open, low-cost network usage.
What Bot Transaction Counts Can Reveal About XRP Ledger Activity
To judge a “bot” claim, you first need a definition of a bot and a reproducible way to classify one. Neither is available here, which is why the percentage stays a claim rather than a finding.
There is also a structural reason transaction counts overstate distinct payments on XRPL. The ledger has run a built-in decentralized exchange since it launched in 2012, and making a trade there requires sending a transaction, according to XRPL’s official documentation.
Those DEX offers behave like limit orders. An offer can fill partially, leave its remainder sitting on the ledger, and later get consumed by other offers or cross-currency payments, and it can also be cancelled outright.
So a single trading intent can spawn multiple ledger transactions. That is exactly the mechanism CoinGape’s report skips, and it is why a high transaction count from a few accounts can reflect active market-making rather than fake usage. XRPL’s recent upgrades, including a permissioned DEX going live, only deepen that on-chain trading activity.
The report also claims almost half of active accounts went inactive after a single transaction, according to unconfirmed reporting, though the definition of an “active account” and the observation window were not disclosed.
For background, XRP traded near $1.35 around the time of research, down modestly on the day. That price carries no established link to this dispute and should not be read as a market reaction to it.
The honest takeaway: the argument has been made, and Schwartz has answered it, but the core statistic has not been independently reproduced. So the real question isn’t whether XRPL is busy. It’s who gets to define what that busyness is worth.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.
