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Debates are heating up in the cryptocurrency community as Justin Pons, founder and chief investment officer at Cyber Capital, argues that Ripple’s XRP registry is “centralized”.
In contrast, Ripple’s former CTO, David Schwartz, strongly defended the system’s architecture. This raises fundamental questions about what makes a blockchain truly decentralized.
Justin Pons calls XRP ledger “centralized”
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Bones attacked what he called “centralized blockchains.” He explained that many networks rely on permission validation structures, pointing to the UNL in the XRP registry for example.
Bones said that Ripple has a “list of unique nodes”, which effectively leaves auditors with permission, and any deviation from this centrally published list leads to a fork of the chain, giving the Ripple Foundation and the company absolute power and complete control of the chain, depending on what books.
In his publication he also identifies Canton, Stiller, Hedera and Algorand. Bones framed decentralization as a binary choice, arguing that the blockchain is either fully decentralized or it is not. He sees any allowed article as “anti-spirit of cryptocurrencies”.
Pons stated that the future of finance is decentralized and permissionless, but added that it should not be pretended as if these chains play a real role in this revolution… If you care about crypto, reject these permissioned chains and demand that they become decentralized, he wrote.
Bones magazine Also what he described as the only three forms of blockchain consensus: proof of stake, proof of work and proof of authority. He noted that any system that does not rely on PoS or PoW is “by definition PoA”. “Choosing who to trust is not the same as not trusting,” the CEO said, referring specifically to XRP and XLM.
David Schwartz defends the XRP ledger
Bones’ post drew notable reactions from the community. Schwartz, one of the main designers, refused For the XRP record Allegations that Ripple has “absolute power and control.”
Explain that the XRP ledger is designed so that Ripple cannot control the network. Schwartz stated that this decision was deliberate and based on Regulatory considerations.
Ripple, for example, must comply with US court orders, Schwartz said. Can’t refuse…. But could a US court decide that international courtesy with a repressive entity is more important than XRPL or Ripple? We were very concerned that the decision might come either way. We have clearly and absolutely decided that we do not want control and that it would be in our best interest not to have that control; He answered.
Schwartz also disagreed allegations Bones on the possibility of double spending and censorship. description Brokers cannot force an honest node to accept double spending or block transactions.
Each node applies the protocol rules independently and counts only the brokers it has chosen in its unique node list (UNL). If an intermediary behaves dishonestly, the honest node simply treats it as a disagreeing intermediary.
Schwartz acknowledged that intermediaries could theoretically conspire to disrupt the network from the perspective of honest nodes. However, he said this amounted to an attack by the dishonest majority and would not allow double spending. In such a scenario, he explained, the solution would be to choose a new UNL list.
Schwartz said that transactions are constantly discriminated in BTC. On eth transactions are constantly rearranged or maliciously censored. Nothing like this has ever happened to any XRPL transaction and it is hard to imagine how it could happen. Comment.
He also said Until XRPL resolves Double spending problem with consensus rounds occurring approximately every five seconds. In each round, the brokers vote whether the transactions should be included in the current book.
Honest nodes can postpone any valid transaction to the next round if the majority of trusted brokers declare that they have not seen it before the time expires. According to Schwartz, this system maintains consensus without giving absolute control to one party.
Schwartz said that there are only two reasons that the UNL would need to exist: First, a malicious actor could create an unlimited number of brokers, forcing the nodes to do excessive work to achieve consensus. Second, a malicious actor can create intermediaries that do not participate in the consensus, making nodes unable to determine whether they have already achieved consensus with other nodes.
He also confirmed that if he had Ripple The ability to impose surveillance On transactions or performing double spending, the use of that authority will permanently destroy trust in XRPL. Therefore, he said, the system was designed to limit the power of any party, including Ripple itself.
