u.today
David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple and one of the main people behind $XRP Ledger (XRPL), recently spoke about some concerns the $XRP community has been having about the need for $XRP to facilitate transactions on the ledger. These concerns came up as Ripple prepares for the launch of $RLUSD, a stablecoin that the company introduced to expand its service offerings. With the upcoming deployment, some people started wondering if $XRP was still needed on XRPL.
Schwartz explained why $XRP is still needed in the infrastructure, pointing out that it is particularly important for keeping the network safe from spam attacks. He explained that public ledgers like $XRP Ledger need a scarce asset to make sure only legitimate transactions are processed.
If $XRP were not a mandatory part of every transaction, XRPL would be at risk of being flooded with too many requests, which could make the ledger unstable.
For a public ledger to resist spam attacks, you need something scarce to fund a transaction so an attacker can't drown the system with infinite garbage. XRPL only uses $XRP for this purpose. Unless rules change, nothing can move on XRPL without $XRP.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) October 27, 2024
This shows that, unless the rules for XRPL are changed, $XRP will still be needed for all transactions on the ledger. Schwartz's comments give a clear answer about $XRP's central role, which makes it clear that the doubts that came up because of $RLUSD are wrong. The stablecoin is a new thing for Ripple, but it does not replace or reduce $XRP's role on the XRPL.
The community had some valid concerns about the recent expansion, but this clarification of $XRP's irreplaceable function puts those worries to rest. Schwartz's comments show that $XRP is still at the heart of XRPL's operations, even though other assets like $RLUSD get added too.