RippleX engineers explore the native XRP stake potential, David Schwartz shares his views on the future XRPL design.

RippleX Project Lead J. Ayo Akinyele and outgoing Ripple CTO David Schwartz discussed the future development direction of the XRP Distributed Ledger (XRPL), aiming to expand the application of XRP in the Decentralized Finance space. RippleX is Ripple's developer division focused on building tools and infrastructure for the XRP Distributed Ledger.

In an article on Wednesday, Akinyele pointed out that the application scope of XRP has covered tokenized assets, settlements, real-time value transfers, DAT, and most recently, the first pure cash American XRP ETF launched by Canary, reflecting the increasing status of XRP in the institutional market. Akinyele believes that this expansion will naturally raise questions about future incentive mechanisms and participation methods, such as whether XRPL supports a native staking mechanism.

In other networks, the staking mechanism connects validators and token holders through economic incentives. “For holders, these models can provide a more direct way to participate in network governance, but at the same time, they may introduce new complexities in terms of fairness and distribution,” he said.

However, Akinyele also stated that such incentive mechanisms would challenge the long-standing design principles of XRPL. Under the current model of XRPL, transaction fees are burned rather than redistributed, and the trust level of validators depends on their performance rather than the amount they stake.

The developer stated that native staking requires two foundations: a sustainable source of staking rewards and a fair distribution mechanism. He suggested that the current fee-burning model needs to be reconsidered, and new programmable fees might be used for the reward pool. He added that staking can enhance user participation, but it also introduces trade-offs in governance and fairness that must be handled carefully. (The Block)