Ripple Director for Developer Relations Matt Hamilton is out to set the record straight on XRP and the XRP Ledger, clarifying some of the “misconceptions” that surround the digital asset.
XRP, even before being the subject of the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple Labs, was already hounded by narratives that don’t help in its good publicity.
Such stories centered on it not being a real cryptocurrency because of its several characteristics which include having “closed” centralized nodes. The asset was criticized for this, resulting in persistent hostility between XRP holders and the rest of crypto community.
Even with the ongoing court battle between the regulator and XRP’s parent company, this issue still remains at the back of people’s minds.
Hamilton tackles the issues
During an interview with the Crypto Jebb YouTube channel, Hamilton gave his take on the matter, hoping to dispel the “Ripple myths.”
Starting off, the Ripple official said the terms centralization and decentralization have different meanings for different people. This is the reason why the community cannot agree on XRP’s status as a centralized or decentralized network.
For Hamilton, the word “decentralized” means the ability for anyone to use the network without restrictions, adding that no party could stop XRP users from doing transactions on the network if they wish to.
Ripple does not control XRP network
The centralization of nodes on the XRP Ledger is another point of contention for the matter. The ledger currently has 156 validator nodes, 19 of which are identifiable as Ripple nodes. This means that Ripple controls 12% of the nodes.
Hamilton elaborated on this, saying Ripple nodes comprise only a small percentage of the network and with 80% of the consensus needed to validate transactions; there is no way for Ripple to manipulate the network.
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube