Ripple's XRP sales almost doubled in the first quarter of 2021 thanks to a surge in uptake of on-demand liquidity services

• XRP sales by Ripple almost doubled in the first three months of 2021 compared to the last quarter of 2020.
• Ripple said the increase could be linked to its on-demand liquidity services surging in popularity.
• Ripple is facing a lawsuit by the SEC regarding its XRP sales to investors.

Ripple said on Thursday its XRP sales almost doubled in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the last three months of last year. XRP sales rose 97% to $150.34 million from $76.27 million.

The sales growth was the result of a surge in uptake of RippleNet's on-demand liquidity services, the company said. Earlier this year, the soaring popularity for the service led Ripple to acquire 40% stakes in Tranglo, a cross-border payment specialist firm that will enable it to expand its on-demand liquidity offering.

"For well over a year, Ripple has not sold programmatically. Ripple continued to engage in sales to support ODL and key infrastructure partners as part of providing increased XRP liquidity to improve the ODL experience of certain customers, eliminating the need for pre-funding and enabling instant global payments.", the report said.

Ripple's XRP sales in the first quarter represented 0.07% of global XRP volume, up 0.02% from the previous quarter.

Overall XRP volume grew by $55.63 billion to $203.78 billion in the first three month of this year, Ripple's report said, citing data from CryptoCompare TopTier. At the end of the previous quarter, total XRP volume was $148.15 billion, making this a 37.5% increase.

Ripple's report said the first three months of the year marked "a quarter of XRP accumulation". The report said the amount of large-scale wallets that hold XRP worth more than $10 million increased by 11 and 71 further wallets increased holdings above $1 million.

Ripple, which holds the majority of XRP in circulation, said it released tokens out of escrow in line with previous quarters and expectations. The release of XRP could not be categorized as Ripple distributing the cryptocurrency, the report said.

XRP is currently the fifth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, based on CoinMarketCap data. Bitcoin, ether, Binance's BNB coin and doge precede it in that order.

Ripple and two of its executives are currently facing a lawsuit in the US over XRP sales. The Securities and Exchange Commission believes XRP is a security, not a currency. Ripple says XRP is not an investment contract, but is indeed a currency and therefore its distribution of XRP has been legal.