The firm responsible for the development of XRP, Ripple, has released its Q1 XRP markets report.

Ripple sold $169.42m in the first quarter, with institutional sales accounting for $61.93m, over 36% of total sales, CCN reports.

From quarter to quarter, Ripple saw a 54% rise in institutional investment, highlighting an overall increase in cryptocurrency demand from institutional investors.

Looking back to last year, in Q4, XRP had a three-fold gain, however the price of XRP didn’t perform well against the U.S. dollar as the market started to grind to a halt in December.

XRP, the third most valuable crypto asset, is down 13.67% year-to-date, based on market data from OnChainFX. XRP has had a comparatively poor start to the year, as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash reported gains of 48%, 23% and 78% respectively.

However, according to the report, average XRP daily volume has risen to $595m, more than last year.

The report stated: “While the price of XRP decreased, the average XRP daily volume was $595.28 million which is on par with XRP daily volume from Q4 2018. In addition, XRP’s correlation with other top digital assets remained consistently high throughout the quarter.”

institutional interest and demand could have the same level of importance for Ripple as retail interest, as the value of the Ripple blockchain network and solution arises from banks and financial institutions committed to the Ripple blockchain, says CCN.

An additional 13 financial institutions by Ripple on RippleNet at the start of Q1 played a decisive role in driving institutional interest, particularly in Japan.

The team at Ripple commented: “At the start of the quarter, Ripple announced RippleNet surpassed more than 200 customers worldwide, with the addition of 13 new financial institutions that signed up for the company’s payment network. These companies include Euro Exim Bank, SendFriend, JNFX, FTCS, Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Transpaygo, BFC Bahrain, ConnectPay, GMT, WorldCom Finance, Olympia Trust Company, Pontual/USEND and Rendimento”.

Investors place great importance on Ripple continuing to secure high profile partnerships with banks and find ways to show XRP is not a security in the U.S.