Ripple CTO Ends Speculation on XRP Supply: Details

Ripple CTO David Schwartz has put an end to speculation regarding the potential creation of additional XRP tokens. In response to recent claims on social media, Schwartz clarified that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) does not allow for the minting of new XRP under any circumstances.

An X user, Pierre Rochard, claimed that Ripple could create more XRP, fueling speculation within the crypto community. Addressing this, Schwartz responded: “No network rule in the XRPL code permits XRP to be created. In fact, network rules enforced by nodes specifically prohibit this.”

Schwartz added that creating more XRP was impossible on the XRP Ledger due to its sophisticated invariant checking system: “Well, not counting the time a bug allowed creating unlimited bitcoin. Something not possible on XRPL because of its sophisticated invariant checking system, an XRPL innovation that could have prevented the Bitcoin overflow incident and the DAO attack.”

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Backing Schwartz, Vet, an XRPL dunl validator and the xrpcafe cofounder, responded to the claims, stating: “There is no function to mint more XRP, nor is it possible through a bug to do so.”

In a separate X conversation, an X user claimed that the open-source XRPL code base has a secret “mint button.”

Former Ripple developer Matt Hamilton responded, saying, “There is literally no function to create any more XRP. Literally the code to do such a thing does not exist. Furthermore, there is a check each node runs that ensures that no XRP could even accidentally be created (like the Bitcoin value overflow bug that printed 184 billion BTC out of thin air).”

XRP supply remains at 100 billion tokens

XRP’s maximum supply is fixed at 100 billion tokens and is deflationary owing to fee burning. Vet explains why this is so.

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When the XRP Ledger launched in 2012, 100 billion XRP were created in the genesis XRP account on the genesis ledger. This account is hardcoded, with all keys exposed.

With this, no more XRP may be issued because the XRP Ledger checks every transaction to see if it creates a new XRP, for example, due to a bug, and blocks it. As a result, unlike Bitcoin, no occurrence in history has resulted in the creation of a new XRP. These checks are referred to as invariant checkers in the code.

The XRPL being decentralized would not permit further creation of XRP because the same rules apply to everyone, even Ripple, which must follow the public XRPL rules.