‘Ghost Chain’: XRP Ledger Under Fire For 93% Bot Transactions, Ripple Veteran Schwartz Defends

The XRP Ledger has been recently targeted for its lopsided distribution of transactions on the network. Criticism stemmed from a study by Bitquery stating that 793 accounts comprised more than 93% of all network activity in August 2026.

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XRP Ledger Faces Backlash Over Massive Bot Transactions

The results quickly drew attention from a large portion of the XRP community, including a popular critic, Scam Daddy, who labeled the blockchain a “Ghost chain.” However, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz argued in favor of the network as he said that low costs are not a liability.

The data from Bitquery indicates that 793 accounts handled 93.2% of transactions in August. The report also said that following a process of eliminating machine-driven activity and spam, just 0.8% of the ledger traffic was made by “real, human-scale payments.” It also said that almost half of the active accounts were inactive after making just one transaction.

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

XRP critic Scam Daddy highlighted the figures in a post on X. “In August 2026, 793 accounts did 93% of the transactions on the XRPL. These are all bots and spammers.” He added, “Less than 1% was real human payments. It’s been this way for 8 years,” before describing the network as a “Ghost chain.”

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David Schwartz Rejects ‘Ghost Chain’ Label

In a straight rebuttal, Schwartz challenged the criticism. “This is such a weird thing to say,” he wrote. Ripple CTO Emeritus said, “Yes, it’s very cheap. Yes, you can use it for useful things and useless things.”

He asked a rhetorical question if it would be better if transactions were more expensive. Schwartz questioned, “If it were more expensive and fewer people did low-value things on it, would that somehow make it better?”

Scam Daddy later clarified his position, saying, “Just highlighting the usage breakdown.”

Pro-XRP lawyer Bill Morgan also provided defense for the ledger. Responding to the criticism, he provided a GROK response, which argued that calling XRPL a “ghost chain” was “a rhetorical attack because the phrase is a slogan, not a metric.”

Payment and tokenization traffic are often overlooked by any critics, as they get focused on concentrated traffic from bots or exchanges, the snapshot added. It also noted that the label “persuades by insult rather than by measuring whether value is actually moving and being recorded.”

In August 2026, 793 accounts did 93% of the transactions on the XRPL. These are all bots and spammers.

Less than 1% was real human payments. It’s been this way for 8 years.

Ghost chain. pic.twitter.com/NVVPAgw0rZ

— 𝕾𝖈𝖆𝖒𝖘 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖇𝖆𝖉 (aka. ScamDaddy𐦐) (@ScamDetective5) September 10, 2026

Development on the XRP Ledger progressed. The xrpld 3.3.0 Permission Delegation amendment is progressing towards the validator voting process. It aims to activate role-based permissions that enable institutions to delegate certain operational functions without exposing keys of the master wallet.

XRPL validator Vet confirmed support, writing, “I just voted Yes for Permission Delegation.” He called it “a critical feature for the XRP Ledger.”