AI bots spotted in XRP Ledger as scripts spike fees

Validators monitoring the XRP Ledger (XRPL) say “AI bots” and faulty scripts may be behind unusual activity over the past two days. A dUNL validator called Vet flagged the pattern after one case burned over $2,000 in fees across just four payment transactions—an abnormal spike for XRPL. On-chain data also shows about 32% of XRP payment transactions failed. Many appear to be automation attempts to front-run liquidity; when the trade doesn’t execute, the transaction reverts and fails. Vet noted the rise may come from people “vibe coding” with AI tools that generate automated, sometimes untested, complex queries that spam public infrastructure. Not all activity looks malicious: escrow unlocks spiked as well. More than 750,000 XRP (about $1M) were unlocked, mostly from holders’ community escrows whose time locks expired. A developer identified as xrpl_adam scanned the ledger and completed cleanup for holders. Market context: XRP outperformed BTC in the last seven days, rising nearly 4% while BTC was slightly down. Wallet counts hit new highs across tiers, and RLUSD stablecoin usage showed up frequently in token transactions. Ripple-linked corporate exposure also surfaced, including Evernorth Holdings reporting over 473M XRP holdings. For traders, the key takeaway is that AI bots and script-driven noise are impacting XRPL transaction quality, while broader adoption signals (stablecoin usage, wallet growth) remain supportive.