Ripple's CTO, David Schwartz, has taken action again. He publicly disputes the criticism that the XRP Ledger is a centralized network controlled by corporations.
The origin of this was a claim by Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital. He pointed out that several blockchains, including XRPL, are effectively under Ripple's direct control, warning users to be cautious. He especially focused on the UNL (Unique Node List) mechanism, arguing that it gives Ripple "absolute power and control."
Schwartz's rebuttal is interesting. He dismissed this claim as "objectively absurd," using an analogy that even if Bitcoin miners hold over half the hash power, they can't arbitrarily issue tens of billions of BTC. In other words, influence does not equate to control. He emphasized that XRPL operates with a decentralized validator and consensus mechanism, not under the unilateral authority of a single company.
Bons further claimed that XRPL and Bitcoin share similar vulnerabilities. He pointed out the possibility that multiple validators could collude to censor transactions or perform double-spending. Schwartz made an important point here: XRPL nodes independently verify transactions, and unless explicitly configured otherwise, they do not accept censorship or double-spending. Even if a collusion attack occurs, the worst-case scenario is temporary network downtime, not the approval of fraudulent transactions.
There are also operational differences. Miners and validators on Bitcoin and Ethereum frequently reconfigure, delay, or prioritize transactions, but such malicious censorship or reordering has not been observed on XRPL. Schwartz stated, "This has never happened with XRPL transactions."
This debate is not new. Schwartz has received similar points from Katie Long, CEO of Custodia Bank, which at that time showed XRPL operated with over 1,000 independent nodes. Market data on Ripple's large XRP holdings also supports this. Past escrow releases have not caused sustained declines, and XRP's price trends tend to follow the broader crypto market.
Personally, the clear takeaway from this TLDR is that discussions about centralization should be based on numbers and concrete examples, not just theoretical possibilities. The difference in implementation and operation is crucial. While you can find XRPL-related assets on exchanges, it’s wise to understand these technical backgrounds before making judgments.