Ripple’s executive gloating after 51% on ETC. But can XRP ledger be measured with the same rod as other cryptocurrencies?
In the light of the 51% attack on another minor proof of work chain, other consensus mechanism proponents jumped on the opportunity to thump bitcoin’s consensus mechanism of choice while simultaneously tooting their own horns with heaped praise of proof of stake or Ripple’s consensus mechanism.
Ripple’s David Schwartz gloated on Twitter:
The tweet made quite a splash, with regular XRP militia swarming around it with empty praise of how great Schwartz or Ripple (or both) are. However, there were some intelligent comments to pick out as well.
Read here about best wallets for storing XRP tokens .
Most notable one came from a Twitter user BitConsultants who pointed out, for the thousandth time, that XRP ledger relies heavily on Ripple and their decision on who will make the cut and be included in the default UNL of trusted nodes.
And boom, down we go the rabbit hole, the hole bitcoin vs ripple clans went so many times until now. The bottom line is, however, that Ripple does exert too high of an influence on the XRP ledger and hence make it a Ripple dependent centralized database.
As BitConsultants pointed out:
” I’m talking about consensus, not the software. XRP consensus is achieved and maintained through Ripple’s coordination of the default validator list. “
Single point of failure
Engineer from buda.com Ignacio Baixas drilled a bit deeper on the topic, explaining the fallacy:
“From Ripple consensus process explanation: https://ripple.com/build/xrp-ledger-consensus-process/
Validators are chosen based on the expectation they will not collude in a coordinated effort to falsify data relayed to the network
So, Ripple relies in a validator selection process done by a third party… an error prone, easy to coerce third party. Currently the Ripple validator registry is the only trusted source of validators. The attacker could attempt to register the evil validators in there but, most likely, it will be rejected by Ripple Co. You can select any validator set you want, but you will probably won’t connect to a set validators from a source you don’t trust.
So, we are safe because we trust the validator source, this is because it is controlled by a trusted entity. We are safe because Ripple is a centralized solution at it’s core, and since it does not have a proper mechanism to incentivize good behavior in their validators, it will never be decentralized.”
This makes Ripple and XRP some type of a digital asset, but not a cryptocurrency by definition. Hence, Ripple and XRP should refrain from commenting happenings in the crypto world as they are not a true part of it.
Lol someone needs to grow up because there are plenty of other companies that are based on consensus rather than POW.
Block chain is another key word.
Anyway it’s all about how much of an impact the technology is in fixing real world problems like XRP. People Need to wisen up. If someone is black or white doesn’t matter either as we are all human.