Schwartz: "Ripple Controls XRP Consensus? Nonsense"

▲ XRP/AI-generated image

Ripple's Honorary Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, directly refuted key misconceptions surrounding the XRP Ledger. U.Today reported on the 13th that Schwartz explained the XRP Ledger's operations to address ongoing misunderstandings.

Schwartz explained that XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger, is not used for blockchain security or the consensus process. When an X user asked, referring to his past remarks comparing Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake, and the XRP Ledger, whether XRP itself was chosen to have scarcity, he replied that XRP plays no role in consensus.

Schwartz explained two reasons why XRP is not used for consensus. He stated that when the XRP Ledger was developed, Proof-of-Stake had not yet been invented, and the developers at the time were not clever enough to conceive of Proof-of-Stake.

A more crucial reason, he explained, is that if XRP were used in the consensus mechanism, it would create a structure where Ripple would control the consensus mechanism, whether it wanted to or not. Schwartz stated that the XRP Ledger relies on what is called "shareholder choice." Network participants choose to reach consensus with validators they deem trustworthy.

Schwartz also argued in a 2020 lecture that artificial monetary rewards harm the actual users of the network. He believed that while final consistency is necessary for a blockchain to be useful, paying excessive costs to solve this problem is inefficient.

Schwartz fundamentally viewed built-in mining rewards or staking rewards negatively. He said, "Artificial incentives are an attack on natural stakeholders and represent friction remaining within the system."

Schwartz continued, "Natural incentives create decentralization. The only reason to participate in the system is because you want the system to work reliably, and there's nothing to take from the system." U.Today reported that these remarks clarify and refute the long-standing perception that Ripple controls XRP Ledger consensus.

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