The post Ripple CTO Ends Speculation of XRP Fork: Details appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. In a recent development, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz and head of engineering J.A Akinyele revealed a thought experiment on how XRP could be used in DeFi, both organically with apps and protocol, and natively on-chain. The conversation deepened as XRP community members discussed the implications of staking for the XRP Ledger. Along these lines, Ripple CTO David Schwartz hinted at a staking proposal that is yet to be made public. The idea calls for a “governance token” intended to be worthless, with limited circulating supply, and may be used to control holders through voting. The discussion went further as XRP enthusiast WrathofKahneman asked if the XRPL is not already “governed by fork” in some sense, albeit without staked funds at play. All public layer-1 blockchains are ultimately governed by fork. But I think it’s good to have robust protections from other governance mechanisms that help reduce the risk of a fork. XRPL’s published UNL is one such mechanism. Validator’s voting for amendments is another. — David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) November 19, 2025 To this, Ripple CTO David Schwartz answered that all public layer-1 blockchains are ultimately governed by fork. Putting the speculation of an XRP fork to rest, Schwartz noted  the essence of robust protections from other governance mechanisms that help reduce the risk of a fork. The Ripple CTO mentioned XRPL’s published UNL as one such mechanism, and validators voting for amendments as another. XRP UNL reduces risk of fork A unique node list (UNL) is a server’s list of validators trusted not to collude. Every XRP Ledger server is configured with a UNL, which determines which validation votes it listens to and which votes it throws out during the consensus process. However, if two servers operate with totally different UNLs, they are likely to reach different conclusions about… The post Ripple CTO Ends Speculation of XRP Fork: Details appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. In a recent development, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz and head of engineering J.A Akinyele revealed a thought experiment on how XRP could be used in DeFi, both organically with apps and protocol, and natively on-chain. The conversation deepened as XRP community members discussed the implications of staking for the XRP Ledger. Along these lines, Ripple CTO David Schwartz hinted at a staking proposal that is yet to be made public. The idea calls for a “governance token” intended to be worthless, with limited circulating supply, and may be used to control holders through voting. The discussion went further as XRP enthusiast WrathofKahneman asked if the XRPL is not already “governed by fork” in some sense, albeit without staked funds at play. All public layer-1 blockchains are ultimately governed by fork. But I think it’s good to have robust protections from other governance mechanisms that help reduce the risk of a fork. XRPL’s published UNL is one such mechanism. Validator’s voting for amendments is another. — David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) November 19, 2025 To this, Ripple CTO David Schwartz answered that all public layer-1 blockchains are ultimately governed by fork. Putting the speculation of an XRP fork to rest, Schwartz noted  the essence of robust protections from other governance mechanisms that help reduce the risk of a fork. The Ripple CTO mentioned XRPL’s published UNL as one such mechanism, and validators voting for amendments as another. XRP UNL reduces risk of fork A unique node list (UNL) is a server’s list of validators trusted not to collude. Every XRP Ledger server is configured with a UNL, which determines which validation votes it listens to and which votes it throws out during the consensus process. However, if two servers operate with totally different UNLs, they are likely to reach different conclusions about…