XRP Ledger defends emergency patch for unlimited XRP supply bug

XRP Ledger emergency patch — The XRP Ledger Foundation has defended its decision to bypass the network’s normal governance process to urgently patch a critical bug that could have created an unlimited supply of XRP tokens.

The foundation, along with developers from RippleX, stated the severity of the bug, discovered via a bug bounty report on Sept. 22, justified the expedited fix released on Sept. 25. They argued that waiting for the standard two-week validator voting period would have left the flaw publicly exposed and exploitable. The patch took effect immediately on any server that installed it.

The bug was an integer overflow vulnerability present in the ledger’s payment engine since 2015. It could have allowed an attacker to create specially priced offers and execute a payment that would mint new, spendable XRP beyond the capped 100 billion supply. Developers confirmed there is no evidence the bug was exploited.

The move has sparked a debate about the network’s decentralization. Cyber Capital founder Justin Bons criticized the action, suggesting marketing XRP as decentralized is ‘fraud.’ The XRP Ledger Foundation countered, stating the decision was made jointly and that the patch only became a requirement after a normal amendment vote later achieved over 80% validator support for two weeks.