Ripple CTO reveals how XRP Ledger can be attacked

In his recent appearance on The Defiant, David Schwartz, Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, said revealed that the only way to attack the XRP Ledger is to disrupt the global order of transactions. In such a scenario, the entire network would come to a halt.

Schwartz further explained how Proof-of-Association (PoA), the XRP Ledger’s unique consensus protocol, works, explaining that it puts all transactions in order to solve the double-spending problem. “Whatever transaction comes first is valid, whichever transaction comes second is invalid,” he said.

The mastermind behind the XRP Ledger has added that the only plausible attack on the XRP Ledger is to simply stop it.

“You can’t tell my software anything that would cause your XRP to become someone else’s XRP,” Schwartz said.

At the same time, Schwartz believes there is no incentive to stop XRP because it is difficult to imagine generating revenue from it.

Ripple’s CTO claims that the XRP Ledger has only been subjected to rather “generic” attacks so far. “Nobody has ever attempted an attack at this level.”

However, Schwartz admits that there is a “risk” that someone will open an XRP short and try to launch a serious attack to push the price down. However, there are both theoretical and practical reasons why XRP holders should not worry too much about this attack, according to the Ripple executive.

Schwartz says that people who let someone short XRP should be aware of such an attack as they would not let someone short the cryptocurrency on such a large scale. In addition, the Ripple executive pointed out that the network can only be attacked once for a short period of time.

During his conversation with podcast host Camila Russo, Schwartz also commented on topics such as XRP distribution, use cases, smart contracts, and Ripple’s ongoing Legal dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Alex Dovbnya