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Ripple has faced questions over allegedly controlling the XRP Ledger, and the crypto payments company's chief technology officer, David Schwartz, has tried clearing the air.
Interview Details
In an interview with Decrypt on Aug. 6, Schwartz addressed the controversy again. Though he admitted there is a lingering misconception that Ripple controls the XRP Ledger, he said the Ledger's code isn't secretly controlled by Ripple even if the financial institution is a major contributor to the ecosystem.Though the XRP Ledger is "obviously very important" to Ripple, it has no interest in running the network, he added.
Origins of the Centralization Concerns
It is crucial to understand why the questions around Ripple's centralized control over the XRP Ledger arise. Schwartz is behind both the payments firm and the ledger.Notably, the XRP Ledger founders have gifted 80 billion XRP to Ripple, out of which the firm has locked 55 billion XRP into a series of escrows using the same ledger. As of October 2024, 38 billion XRP remained in escrow.
Validator Network Comparisons
Besides, XRP Ledger has a very low number of validators running the network as compared to other blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, Schwartz said that Ripple never censored any transaction.Previous Concerns
It isn't the first time that such concerns around Ripple's control over XRP have been raised. Earlier in May, Schwartz wrote a detailed comment on X in which he drew the distinction between Ripple and XRP.However, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen recently moving XRP worth millions of dollars sparked fresh scrutiny.
Ongoing Legal Battle
There is, of course, the legal battle around the financial status of XRP that has been going on since 2020.This article has been published in thestreet.com via Yahoo News.
