An intriguing debate is on the agenda in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital, claimed that XRP Ledger has a centralized structure. In response to this prominent claim, David Schwartz, one of Ripple’s chief architects and known as the company’s former CTO, defended the structure of the network. This controversy has brought to the fore again the question of whether a blockchain is truly decentralized.
Criticisms on Centrality and XRP Ledger
In his recent statements on social media, Justin Bons claimed that many blockchain networks are centralized due to their “permissioned validator” structures. He particularly emphasized XRP Ledger’s Unique Node List (UNL) system and stated that this structure centralizes the network.
“Ripple has a Unique Node List. This structure effectively authorizes validators. The central publication of this list concentrates control of the network in the hands of Ripple and its affiliates.”
According to Bons, decentralization and permission-free structures should be at the heart of blockchain technology. The famous investor is of the opinion that blockchains are either completely permissionless or centralized. Bons criticized XRP Ledger in this respect and emphasized that there may be similar problems in some other projects.
“The future of finance will be decentralized and permissionless. But some networks are not really taking part in this revolution. So reject these permissioned projects and demand decentralization.”
Referring to Blockchain consensus models, Bons said that structures other than Proof of Stake and Proof of Work actually fall into the Proof of Authority category, which is not secure enough. He stated that, especially in projects such as XRP and Stellar, “there is a difference between deciding who to trust and not needing to trust.”
Critical Defense: David Schwartz’s XRP Ledger Statement
Justin Bons’ claims made a big impact in the community, and David Schwartz, one of Ripple’s important names, shared his opposing views. Schwartz stated that the design of the XRP Ledger deliberately prevents Ripple from gaining full control of the network.
“In the case of Ripple, we have to comply with the decisions of the US courts. But despite the court decision, the interests of XRPL or Ripple can be ignored. We clearly wanted not to have control over this network. We did not want to have control because that would be in our interest.”
Schwartz stated that risks such as centralization and double spending have been suggested in the XRP Ledger, but each node in the protocol independently determines its own UNL list, and therefore the cheating validator can be easily excluded from the system. In other words, he underlined that it is technically not possible for a single party to control the system.
“In Bitcoin, transactions are often discriminated against. In Ethereum, transactions are deliberately reordered or censored. In XRPL, such a situation has never been seen before and such a scenario is unimaginable.”
Schwartz noted that XRP Ledger resolves double spending with consensus rounds held approximately every five seconds, and in each round validators vote to write transactions to the ledger. According to him, although transactions that are not approved by the majority are postponed to the next round, this process does not drag the network into a centralized structure.
“There are two reasons why UNL is needed: Otherwise, malicious actors could create an unlimited number of validators and slow down the network, or nodes would not be able to tell whether they have reached consensus due to non-participating validators.”
Finally, Schwartz stated that if Ripple had the authority to censor or double-spend in the system, such an intervention would fundamentally shake trust in XRPL. In this context, he emphasized that no single actor has sole control over the design of the network.
