XRPL’s Scalability Questioned Amid Inscription Saga

• XRPL’s inability to handle ordinals like Bitcoin’s network raises questions about its technical capacity.
• Network strain from XRPL’s inscription attempts exposes significant transaction speed and scalability discrepancies.
• The XRPL inscription issue offers an unplanned but revealing stress test, highlighting the need for network improvements.

Recent discussions on X (formerly Twitter) have revealed that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is technically incapable of supporting ordinals and their inscriptions. Richard Holland and Crypto Eri have criticized projects attempting to mint ordinals on the XRPL, labeling them impractical and spam.

This new development, mirroring Bitcoin’s inscription method, aimed to inscribe data on XRP drops – the ledger’s smallest unit. As enthusiasts embarked on creating “XRP20” inscriptions, the ledger experienced an unprecedented surge in activity. 

Wietse Wind, the founder of XRPL Labs and a key developer for Xumm, recently offered a unique take on the latest developments on X (formerly Twitter). He observed that the XRPL network is, by chance, experiencing a beneficial stress test as a result of the high traffic caused by the inscriptions.

Although the ledger was previously touted to support up to 1,500 transactions per second (TPS), it has been under pressure with the increased activity, operating at a mere 50 TPS. This level of performance needs to improve its alleged capabilities, sparking debates about the XRPL’s ability to scale and its overall reliability. This issue is underscored by the contrast with Ripple CTO David Schwartz’s earlier comments, where he corrected the 1,500 TPS figure, suggesting a more realistic range of 300 to 500 TPS.

Richard Holland, the Chief Technology Officer at XRPL Labs, has confirmed this key distinction, explaining that, unlike Bitcoin’s satoshis, individual XRP drops cannot be uniquely identified. This technical hurdle renders inscriptions on the XRPL highly problematic, if not unfeasible. Consequently, the project was ultimately abandoned, although a few users persist in minting inscriptions, albeit at a diminished frequency.

The XRPL inscription saga has prompted various responses from the community and developers. Some viewed this episode as an unplanned yet valuable stress test for the network. Others, like Adam, CEO of NFT marketplace XRP Cafe, downplayed the issues, attributing them to infrastructure shortcomings rather than inherent flaws in the XRPL. The situation also highlighted the need for continuous development and possible restructuring to enhance the ledger’s capacity and resilience.