XRP Lending Protocol Nears Milestone, 62.86% Potential Remains

The XRP Ledger lending protocol amendment is currently being voted on. In January, Version 3.1.0 of rippled, the reference server implementation of the XRP Ledger protocol was released, which included single asset vaults and the lending protocol.

However, the voting for the lending protocol appears to be going on steadily, with only 17.14% gained in consensus, according to XRPScan. This is 62.86% away from the required 80% threshold for an amendment to enter an activation phase.

The XRP Ledger amendment system uses the consensus process to approve any changes that affect transaction processing on the XRP Ledger. An amendment must receive more than 80% support for two weeks for it to pass.

In the case of the lending protocol, 62.86% more validator support is required for it to achieve majority.

What comes next? 

Alongside the lending protocol amendment, the XLS-65 specification introduces that a single asset vault is now being watched. The single asset vault is slowly gaining support, currently at 22.85% consensus.

A critical bug was recently found in the proposed XRPL Batch amendment, which might explain the seemingly slow voting response for other amendments as they get tested, without being hurried up.

In light of the batch amendment bug, Ripple indicated it was raising the bar for amendment security.

According to J. A. Akinyele, RippleX head of engineering, in the longer term, Ripple is working toward formal verification of high-risk components on the ledger.

This means proving safety properties for critical components, modeling amendment behavior before activation, standardizing verification requirements for consensus-critical code and integrating formal methods into the XRPL SDLC (from XLS specification to code to testing).

The goal is to provide end-to-end assurance that XRPL amendment specifications and code are not only functionally correct but also uphold defined security and safety properties for the ledger.