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Ripple Engineers Explore Staking
Recent staking conversations on social media have shocked many in the XRP community. The head of engineering at RippleX, Ayo Akinyele, hinted that the network needs to expand its capabilities to incentivize participants.
The proposals include plans to integrate staking with the XRP Ledger to help the overall ecosystem. Akinyele noted that staking enhances security, providing a more direct way to participate in the network. Users are also directly rewarded for maintaining consensus.
However, developers are at a crossroads with the XRP Ledger due to its current design. Currently, transaction fees are burned and not distributed, while trust is earned through performance rather than a financial stake.
For staking to exist on the XRP Ledger, developers must provide a source of staking rewards and explain how they can be distributed fairly. This model could subtly change the network dynamics and engage the pro-staking community.
& nbsp“Distribution would also require careful design. Staking changes the way validators and participants interact, introducing financial incentives that can strengthen engagement but also reshape governance dynamics in subtle ways. Putting these right incentives and corresponding sanctions in place is essential to maintaining network fairness and resilience.
Staking became more popular after the Ethereum merger, which transitioned Ethereum to a proof-of-stake blockchain. Akinyele further emphasized that exploring staking options is not just about rewards; Understanding designs builds trust in decentralized networks.
The suggestion was warmly received, although several users expressed opposing views, citing the lack of real decentralization in most staking models. In response to the proposal, Ripple CTO David Schwartz floated two possible ideas to prevent centralization.
“The first is to move to a two-tier consensus model, with the inner layer incentivized. The inner layer would have 16 internal validators chosen by the outer layer based on stake and would use staking/slashing just to advance the ledger. The other is to keep the same consensus, but use transaction fees to pay for ZK proofs of correct execution of smart contracts.
In previous months, Ripple has fostered partnerships strengthening XRPL adoption and participation in the ecosystem. XRP has also attracted massive institutional demand for the current price correction.
