A public dispute has erupted over whether the XRP Ledger is decentralised, after Cyber Capital founder Justin Bons argued that its Unique Node List structure makes validators effectively permissioned.
Bons claimed that reliance on a centrally published UNL gives the Ripple Foundation and company “absolute power & control over the chain,” arguing that any divergence from the list could trigger a fork and framing decentralisation as a binary choice between permissionless and permissioned systems.
“Ripple: Has a ‘Unique Node List’, which makes the validators effectively permissioned. Any divergence from this centrally published list would cause a fork, effectively giving the Ripple Foundation & company absolute power & control over the chain,”
Bons wrote.
Ripple chief technology officer emeritus David Schwartz rejected the accusation, saying XRPL was intentionally designed so Ripple could not control the network and citing regulatory concerns that influenced its architecture.
“Ripple, for example, has to honor US court orders. It cannot say no….But could a US court decide that international comity with an oppressive was more important than XRPL or Ripple? We were quite concerned that could come down either way. 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,”
Schwartz said.
Schwartz added that validators cannot force honest nodes to accept double-spends or censor transactions because each node independently enforces protocol rules and selects its own trusted validators, arguing that while a dishonest majority could theoretically halt consensus, it would not enable unilateral manipulation of ledger history.
At the time of reporting, XRP price was $1.37.