Schwartz comments on XRP Ledger security debate..."Not worth it"

▲ XRP

Discussions to reorganize the transaction order on the XRP Ledger have emerged as a new point of contention, balancing expectations for enhanced security with concerns about network performance degradation.

According to U.Today, a cryptocurrency specialized media outlet, on July 2 (local time), David Schwartz, Ripple's Honorary Chief Technology Officer, addressed concerns about front-running and sandwich attacks that could occur during XRP Ledger payments and offer cross-matching. Schwartz proposed a transaction reservation system that involves reserving transaction slots.

This method ensures that a specific transaction is executed before subsequent transactions created after it is made public. A question arose within the XRP community about whether transactions could be timestamped with second-level precision and sorted by submission order. Ripple software engineer Mayukha Vadari gave a negative response, stating that the reception time could vary across nodes as transactions propagate through the peer network.

Schwartz explained that the closest practically feasible method is a structure where validators vote on the transaction order during the consensus process. However, he saw a distinct disadvantage in this approach. He argued that if the transaction order also needs to be agreed upon, the number of data bits to be agreed upon would increase, potentially significantly slowing down the consensus process.

As an alternative, attaching a flag to transactions requesting order assurance was also discussed. Transactions with this flag set would be propagated preferentially over unflaggd transactions within the same ledger, and their order would be determined by consensus. However, this method requires additional fees.

Schwartz also showed caution regarding this alternative. He said, “I don’t think it’s worth it. Especially because it makes it easier to front-run or sandwich attack transactions that don't have the flag set.” The reorganization of the XRP Ledger's transaction order aims to prevent attacks, but it remains a technical challenge that must consider consensus speed and the vulnerability of unflaggd transactions.

[Key Article Summary]

-Discussions have been raised to change transaction reservation and sorting on the XRP Ledger to reduce front-running and sandwich attacks.

-Schwartz pointed out that validator consensus-based transaction order determination is possible but could significantly slow down the consensus speed.

-The order assurance flag method offers advantages of additional fees and preferential propagation, but concerns were raised that it could make unflaggd transactions more vulnerable.

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