Demand for Ripple’s XRP in the United States has surged to its highest level in four years, reaching figures last seen before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged the token was a security in 2020.

Data from Kaiko shows that XRP’s trading volume on US centralized exchanges has jumped to 14% of global XRP volume, up from less than 2% a year ago. This marks a return to pre-SEC lawsuit levels when the digital asset ranked among the top three digital assets by market capitalization.

Amid the protracted legal battle with the SEC, XRP saw a drastic decline in interest as several crypto platforms delisted it from their platforms. However, things began to change last year after Ripple secured a judgment that declared that XRP sales on secondary trading platforms were not securities transactions.

Following the ruling, major US exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini relisted XRP, unlocking substantial demand from American traders.

XRP spot volume

Notably, Ripple’s quarterly report confirmed that interest in the XRP token was high.

According to the firm, digital asset’s spot trading volume ranked among the top three in the industry during the second quarter.

It stated:

“[XRP] traded volumes remained elevated throughout the first half of the quarter…The latter half of Q2 maintained consistently high traded volumes across the major exchanges.”

This surge in interest is not unexpected, considering XRP has attracted significant attention amid speculation about a potential settlement with the SEC. Last month, XRP was the top-performing asset among the top ten digital currencies, achieving a 35% gain, outperforming Bitcoin and others.

XRPL volume down

Meanwhile, Ripple’s XRP Ledger (XRPL) network experienced a significant drop in transaction volume during the second quarter, falling to 86.39 million transactions—a 65.6% decrease from the previous quarter.

Ripple attributes this decline to a broader trend affecting major blockchain protocols, with XRPL reflecting a similar downturn. Notably, the average transaction fees on the network spiked by 168% to 0.00394 XRP during the period.

However, Ripple remains confident about XRPL’s future, anticipating a boost in network activity with features like the XRPL Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain, Axelar interoperability, and the new Oracle and Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard.

Additionally, the firm believes introducing tokenized real asset platforms like OpenEden and the upcoming launch of the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin would drive further growth for the blockchain.