{"id":73967,"date":"2026-02-25T22:01:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=73967"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:01:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:01:33","slug":"ripple-cto-emeritus-fires-back-at-xrp-ledger-centralization-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=73967","title":{"rendered":"Ripple CTO Emeritus Fires Back at XRP Ledger Centralization Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ripple CTO Emeritus David \u201cJoelKatz\u201d Schwartz pushed back against claims that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is effectively centralized, after founder and CIO of Cyber Capital Justin Bons argued that XRPL\u2019s Unique Node List (UNL) structure makes validators \u201cpermissioned\u201d and gives Ripple-aligned entities \u201cabsolute power & control over the chain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exchange, sparked by Bons\u2019 broader thread calling for the industry to \u201creject all centralized \u2018blockchains\u2019,\u201d quickly narrowed into a technical dispute over what XRPL validators can and cannot do in practice and what \u201ccontrol\u201d means in a system that relies on curated validator lists rather than Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake.<\/p>\n

The XRP Ledger Centralization Allegation<\/h2>\n

In his thread<\/a>, Bons lumped Ripple alongside Canton, Stellar, Hedera, and Algorand as networks with permissioned or semi-permissioned elements. His XRPL-specific charge was straightforward: because XRPL nodes typically rely on a published UNL<\/a>, \u201cany divergence from this centrally published list would cause a fork,\u201d which in his view concentrates power in the hands of whoever publishes that list.<\/p>\n

Bons framed it as a binary question: \u201ceither fully permissionless or it is not\u201d and argued that even partial permissioning is a deal breaker. He also extended the critique into a broader institutional-adoption thesis: banks and incumbents may prefer controlled environments, but \u201cthose institutions will be left behind,\u201d while \u201ccrypto natives\u201d win by building and using fully permissionless systems.<\/p>\n

Schwartz\u2019s opening rebuttal<\/a> attacked the logic of Bons\u2019 \u201cabsolute power\u201d framing. \u201c\u2018\u2026effectively giving the Ripple Foundation & company absolute power & control over the chain\u2026\u2019\u201d Schwartz wrote, calling it \u201cas objectively nonsensical as claiming someone with a majority of mining power can create a billion bitcoins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bons responded that he wasn\u2019t alleging supply manipulation or fund theft, but insisted majority influence can still matter. \u201cThey can not steal funds, either, but they could potentially double-spend & censor,\u201d Bons said. \u201cWhich, again, is exactly the same if someone controlled the majority of mining power in BTC.\u201d He then suggested they debate live on a podcast.<\/p>\n

Schwartz rejected the equivalence on mechanics, emphasizing that XRPL nodes do not accept censorship or double-spend<\/a> behavior simply because a validator says so. \u201cThat\u2019s not true. XRPL and BTC don\u2019t work the same,\u201d Schwartz wrote. \u201cYou count the number of validators that agree with your node and your node will not agree to double spend or censor unless you, for some reason, want it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued the point across multiple posts, leaning on a simple intuition: a dishonest validator is not an oracle; it\u2019s just one vote. \u201cIf a validator tried to double spend or censor, an honest node would just count it as one validator that it did not agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Schwartz Says The Real Attack Looks Like<\/h2>\n

Schwartz acknowledged there is still a failure mode, but described it as a liveness problem rather than a theft or double-spend scenario. \u201cValidators could conspire to halt the chain from the point of view of honest nodes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the XRPL equivalent of a dishonest majority attack except they never get to double spend. The cure is to pick a new UNL just as with BTC you\u2019d need to pick a new mining algorithm<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also argued the empirical record matters, contrasting XRPL with other major networks. \u201cThe practical evidence tells this story,\u201d Schwartz wrote. \u201cTransactions are discriminated against all the time in BTC. Transactions are maliciously re-ordered or censored all the time on ETH. Nothing like this has ever happened to an XRPL transaction and it\u2019s hard to imagine how it could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz later laid out a more detailed explanation of XRPL\u2019s consensus model, emphasizing fast \u201clive consensus\u201d rounds\u2014\u201cevery five seconds\u201d\u2014where validators vote on whether a transaction is included now or deferred to the next round. In that framing, the system\u2019s key requirement is not blind trust in validators, but agreement on whether a transaction was seen before a cutoff.<\/p>\n

He argued XRPL needs a UNL for two reasons: to prevent an attacker from spawning unlimited validators that force excessive work, and to prevent validators from simply not participating in a way that makes consensus impossible to measure. \u201cThat\u2019s it. There\u2019s no control or governance here other than coordinating activation of new features,\u201d Schwartz wrote, adding that validators cannot force a node to enforce rules it does not have code for.<\/p>\n

Schwartz closed with a longer, unusually candid rationale: that XRPL\u2019s architecture was intentionally built to reduce Ripple\u2019s ability to comply with demands to censor, even if Ripple itself wanted to be trusted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe carefully and intentionally designed XRPL so that we could not control it,\u201d he wrote. \u201cRipple, for example, has to honor US court orders. It cannot say no\u2026 We absolutely and clearly decided that we DID NOT WANT control and that it would be to our own benefit to not have that control.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added a blunt incentive argument: even if Ripple could censor or double-spend, using that power would destroy trust in XRPL and therefore destroy the network\u2019s utility. \u201cAnd the best way to be able to say \u2018no\u2019 is to have to say \u2018no\u2019 because you cannot do the thing asked,\u201d Schwartz wrote.<\/p>\n

At press time, XRP traded at $1.3766.<\/p>\n

\"XRP<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ripple CTO Emeritus David \u201cJoelKatz\u201d Schwartz pushed back against claims that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is effectively centralized, after founder and CIO of Cyber Capital Justin Bons argued that XRPL\u2019s Unique Node List (UNL) structure makes validators \u201cpermissioned\u201d and gives Ripple-aligned entities \u201cabsolute power & control over the chain.\u201d The exchange, sparked by Bons\u2019 broader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-73967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}