The post Ripple CTO Unpacks XRPL Decentralization—Is It Truly Decentralized? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz highlights XRPL’s reliance on custodians for Bitcoin transactions, challenging decentralization principles. Schwartz addresses XRP’s decentralized consensus process, emphasizing the need for community agreement on network changes. Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently addressed the ongoing debates surrounding the decentralization of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), shedding light on the platform’s design and its role in the crypto market. Schwartz’s comments came amid growing discussions on the future of Bitcoin and XRP, particularly regarding their scalability and trustless bridging solutions. His statements have reignited the debate over whether XRPL is truly decentralized or still relies on centralized elements. Schwartz revealed that one of the initial purposes of XRPL was to facilitate faster and more cost-effective Bitcoin transactions. However, he also pointed out a major limitation in this early use case, the necessity of custodians to hold the actual Bitcoin. This raised concerns over trust issues, as custodial solutions counter the decentralization principles central to blockchain technology. Consider any realistic hypothetical: Some large contingent of XRPL users and developers want to add privacy features to XRPL that Ripple thinks will harm its business interests. What will happen? Do you think you know because I don’t. — David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) February 19, 2025 He emphasized that while custodians can speed up Bitcoin transactions, they introduce centralized elements that undermine the core ideals of trustlessness. The Ripple CTO stressed the need for a solution to provide fast, cheap, and trustless bridging between assets like Bitcoin and XRP, which remains an ongoing challenge in the crypto market. Schwartz’s commentary didn’t stop at technical challenges. He also highlighted the uncertainty surrounding decentralization in any blockchain network. In a thought-provoking tweet, Schwartz posed a fictive scenario where many XRPL users wanted to add privacy features that could conflict with Ripple’s business interests. He noted…

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Filed under: News - @ February 20, 2025 3:14 am