The XRP Ledger has been running for more than a decade. In crypto years, that makes it a seasoned veteran, a network built on principles that feel almost quaint today. Its design has always prioritized stability and reliability. Trust is earned by performance, not by how much money you have locked up. But now, a conversation is starting inside its core development community. A very modern question is being asked of this very established ledger: is it time to consider staking?
- The core development community of the established XRP Ledger (XRPL) is beginning to discuss the possibility of adopting native staking mechanisms. This discussion is driven by XRP’s expanding utility beyond simple settlement, including tokenized assets and real-time payments.
- Currently, XRPL validators are rewarded by maintaining a healthy ecosystem, and transaction fees are burned, creating deflationary pressure. Adopting staking would require fundamentally rewriting the ledger’s rules to create reward pools, likely by redirecting fees from new programmability features.
- Ripple CTO David Schwartz introduced complex theoretical models, such as a two-layer consensus structure or using zero-knowledge proofs, but stressed that these are early ideas requiring careful consideration of governance trade-offs.
The discussion was kicked off by J. Ayo Akinyele, the Head of Engineering at RippleX, Ripple’s developer division. In a recent post, he laid out a simple observation. XRP isn’t just for settlement anymore. It’s being used for tokenized assets, real-time payments, and it even has its own spot ETF. As its utility grows, so do questions about how people participate in the network.
This naturally leads to staking. In many other networks, staking is the engine of participation. You lock up your tokens to help secure the network, and in return, you get financial rewards. Akinyele noted this model can give holders a more direct role in governance. It aligns everyone’s financial interests. Simple enough, right?
Not for the XRP Ledger. Adopting native staking would mean rewriting some of its foundational rules. Right now, transaction fees on the XRPL are burned. They are destroyed forever, which is a deflationary pressure on the total supply of XRP. Validators, the nodes that confirm transactions, don’t get paid from these fees. They run their hardware because they have a vested interest in a stable, efficient network. Their reward is a healthy ecosystem, not a direct payout.
Staking would flip this on its head. To pay rewards, you need a pool of funds. Akinyele suggested that fees from new programmability features could be redirected into a rewards pool instead of being burned. But that creates new problems. How do you distribute those rewards fairly? Who decides the rules? He acknowledged that while staking could boost engagement, it introduces trade-offs around governance and fairness that must be handled with extreme care.
He also pointed out that the ecosystem isn’t exactly waiting around. Projects like Uphold, Flare, and MoreMarkets are already building staking-like models on their own, without needing any changes to the core protocol. Innovation is happening at the edges, which might be the XRPL way.
The Veteran Architect Weighs In
Just as the conversation got going, a significant voice joined in. David Schwartz, Ripple’s long-serving and soon-to-depart Chief Technology Officer, shared his own perspective. After a decade helping build the ledger, his thoughts carry a certain weight. He admitted that the landscape has changed since the XRPL was designed back in 2012, long before “DeFi” was a household term.
On the social media platform X, Schwartz was candid about his own shift in thinking.
My own thoughts on governance and consensus models have evolved. And I think we're at a point in the ecosystem's evolution where it makes sense to have a discussion about potential new designs. I have some thoughts, but I'm very interested to hear other people's thoughts.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) May 22, 2024
With new smart contract capabilities on the horizon, he said now is the perfect time to explore what native DeFi on the XRPL could look like. He then floated two ideas currently making the rounds. He described them as “awesome technically but probably not realistically likely to be good, at least not any time soon.” It’s the kind of honest, grounded take you expect from a seasoned engineer.
His first idea is a two-layer consensus model. Think of it like a company’s leadership structure. A small, inner group of validators, selected based on their stake, would be responsible for advancing the ledger quickly. This is your executive team, making the day-to-day decisions. The existing, larger outer layer of validators would act as the board of directors. They would govern fees, approve major changes, and provide oversight. This could, in theory, increase validator diversity and speed things up.
The second idea involves zero-knowledge proofs (a way to prove something is true without revealing the underlying information). In this model, the XRPL would keep its current consensus mechanism. But transaction fees would be used to fund ZK proofs that verify smart contract executions. This would mean nodes wouldn’t have to run the complex code themselves. They could just check the proof, guaranteeing the outcome is correct without all the heavy lifting.
Even as he explained them, Schwartz pumped the brakes. He questioned whether the potential performance gains from these complex systems would justify the added risks and complexity. Community members echoed these concerns, worrying about fee dynamics and new tensions between validators and users.
A Conversation, Not a Command
What’s clear from both Akinyele and Schwartz is that this isn’t a formal proposal. It’s the beginning of a public dialogue. They aren’t pushing for an immediate overhaul of a system that has worked reliably for over twelve years. Instead, they are opening the floor to a necessary debate.
How does a network built for stability and trust adapt to a world obsessed with incentives and high-yield financial products? Can it incorporate new ideas without sacrificing its core identity? The community’s reaction shows there are no easy answers. Some argue that financial incentives inevitably create conflict, pitting validators against users in a battle over fees.
Schwartz addressed this, noting that in his two-layer model, the outer validators would still police the staked inner validators. But the question remains. Is the juice worth the squeeze?
For now, the XRPL remains unchanged. Its fee-burning mechanism and performance-based trust model are still in place. But the conversation has started. By examining ideas like native staking, the community gets a clearer picture of what the ledger should protect at all costs, and where it has room to grow.
The old guard is looking at the new world, and they’re asking what comes next. That alone is a sign of a healthy, living ecosystem.