The XRP Burn Charade: My Personal Take on Crypto's Slowest Disappearing Act

I've been watching XRP's so-called "burn mechanism" for years now, and frankly, it's becoming something of a joke. Once touted as a clever way to increase scarcity and potentially drive value, this burn rate has absolutely crashed to near-zero levels in 2025. What a disappointment.

The Sad Reality Behind XRP Burns

Remember when we used to see around 5,000 XRP burned daily? Those days are long gone. Now we're looking at a pathetic 400-750 tokens disappearing each day. I mean, seriously? With a supply of 100 billion, this is like removing a grain of sand from a beach and expecting property values to rise.

The burn mechanics have always been basic - a tiny transaction fee (0.00001 XRP) gets destroyed with each transaction to prevent spam. But with transaction volumes tanking, this "deflationary" feature has become virtually meaningless.

A Network Gathering Dust

What really irks me is how this exposes the fundamental problem - nobody's using this damn network! The burn rate is essentially a proxy for network activity, and right now it's screaming "ghost town." All those grand promises about becoming the standard for cross-border payments? Well, I'm still waiting.

When I log into my trading account and look at the XRP charts, I can't help but think we've been sold a fantasy. The decreased burn rate directly reflects decreased use, no matter how the "XRP Army" tries to spin it.

Implications for XRP's Future Value

Without a meaningful burn mechanism or another way to manage supply, XRP will struggle to create any real scarcity. Simple market economics - if supply stays high while demand remains stagnant, price appreciation becomes challenging.

I've watched many investors throw money at XRP expecting $10, $20, even $100 valuations someday. But with burns at near-zero, we're looking at a token that will remain abundant for thousands of years. At the previous burn rate of 5,000 daily, it would take 25,000 years to burn half the supply. Now? We might as well be talking about geological timescales.

What This Tells Us About Crypto Infrastructure

The truly frustrating part is that XRP's burn mechanism is actually more ecologically sound than proof-of-work models - it just isn't working as intended because the network isn't seeing adoption. While competitors are constantly upgrading their tokenomics with more aggressive burn mechanisms, XRP remains stuck with an outdated model that only works when the network is buzzing.

Unless something dramatically changes - like actual widespread adoption by financial institutions or a complete overhaul of the token's economic model - XRP's burn rate will remain an embarrassing indicator of a stagnant ecosystem. And that's not just my opinion - that's what the metrics are screaming to anyone willing to listen.