Are There Secret Amendments In the XRPL And Does It Affect XRP Price? Expert Chimes In

Digital asset expert and XRP enthusiast WrathofKahneman has come out to debunk claims of a new backdoor in the XRP Ledger and its effect on the XRP price. This comes in light of a rumor circulating about “secret amendments” in the XRPL. 

Ripple, the company behind XRP, recently introduced a “Clawback” amendment to the XRP Ledger, which would allow issuers to maintain control over their issued assets.

Background Of The Rumor

Rumors are very rampant in the crypto industry, and the XRP Ledger has emerged as the latest victim. Developers recently introduced an XLS-39d Clawback mechanism in the XRP Ledger which would allow issuers to regain funds from a trustline in case of malicious activity. This feature has caused confusion and rumors about whether it applies to the XRP price.

A controversial rumor originated from a social media post by Lewis Jackson, another XRP enthusiast, who claimed the recent changes in the XRPL contained a secret clause that makes “The BuyBack” possible. However, Jackson provided no detailed explanation of his claim. 

There is a secret XRPL Amendment that makes ‘The BuyBack’ possible.

— Lewis Jackson (@cryptolewlew) September 27, 2023

In response, WrathofKahneman disputed the allegation, saying the XLS-39d proposal would only apply to issued assets with trustlines, not the native XRP. XRP is open and permissionless, and Ripple has no special privileges or control over the XRP Ledger.

“If someone tells you there are secret XRPL amendments, they are deceiving you,” WrathofKahneman said in the tweet. 

If someone tells you there are secret #XRPL amendments, they are deceiving you. The amendment process is public. If someone tells you about the XLS-39d clawback proposal know that it is only for issued tokens (trustlines) and doesn’t affect #XRP.https://t.co/oO1YscB8jH

— WrathofKahneman (@WKahneman) September 27, 2023

Secret amendments to the XRPL are impossible to implement since it is an open-source, decentralized public Blockchain. Changes in the ledger are always made public, as in the case of the Clawback feature. 

However, it would seem the confusion came from the nomenclature in the XRPL documentation since all assets other than XRP in the documentation are called tokens in the XRP ledger, which extends to trustline tokens.

Is There An Impact On XRP Price?

According to WrathofKahneman, the XRPL Clawback amendment doesn’t affect XRP. Evidently, the XRP price has done better than most cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours. At the time of writing, the XRP price has increased by 2.50% as the entire cryptocurrency market is in the green. The recent surge is currently being led by Bitcoin, which moved above $27,000 for the first time this week. 

XRP has always been subject to claims of centralization. The most recent of these is staunch Bitcoin supporter and Bitcoin Advisor to El Salvador’s President Max Keiser, who recently made claims of XRP’s centralization while sharing a 32-year-old patent for a distributed computer system by Ripple. In response, Ripple CTO David Schwartz dismissed the allegation as ignorance.