Widely followed community figure “All Things XRP” has taken to social media to dismantle one of the most persistent myths in the crypto space: the claim that more XRP can be printed.
In a detailed 10-point thread, the XRP advocate outlined why the token’s supply is immutable, transparent, and decentralized. He also clarified why fears of inflation or hidden minting mechanisms are entirely baseless.
Contrary to speculation, XRP’s entire supply of 100 billion tokens was pre-mined at the launch of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in 2012. There has never been a minting function in the ledger, and no mechanism exists to introduce new XRP tokens.
Instead, XRP’s supply is deflationary over time, as the network burns a small portion of tokens with each transaction fee.
Decentralized Governance Prevents Supply Tampering
Furthermore, the commentator highlighted that a decentralized group of independent validators governs XRPL. Ripple, often mistakenly assumed to have central control, operates less than 10% of validator nodes.
Any protocol-level changes, including hypothetical changes to supply, would require over 80% validator consensus sustained over two consecutive weeks. Such a move has never occurred, and many consider it economically and politically implausible.
Notably, developers can technically fork open-source projects like the XRPL to create new versions. However, any forked chains attempting to create “new XRP” would lack legitimacy, validator support, and market relevance.
Most of Ripple’s XRP Holdings are in Escrow
Although Ripple holds a significant amount of XRP, it cannot arbitrarily release tokens into circulation. As of now, Ripple has 36 billion XRP in monthly escrows, with a maximum of 1 billion XRP released per month. Notably, the firm sends unused XRP back to escrow.
This escrow system is transparent and verifiable on-chain, ensuring Ripple cannot flood the market even if it wanted to.
Economic Incentives Make Inflation Irrational
The post also tackled a fundamental economic point: printing more XRP would be self-destructive for anyone with a stake in the ecosystem. Increasing the supply would dilute value, destroy trust, and damage Ripple’s own holdings.
“They’re a business, not idiots,” the tweet notes, stressing that inflation would be economic suicide for Ripple and harmful to the broader XRP community.
Interestingly, there have even been heated arguments about Ripple burning the XRP it holds in escrow, further weakening the argument for inflation.
Proponents of this burning strategy hope it will lead to a major price surge for XRP, rewarding holders. However, Ripple CTO David Schwartz previously cited the incineration of half of XLM’s supply, which failed to impact prices, as evidence that a similar XRP burn would be ineffective.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, the commentary stresses that no one, not Ripple, not validators, not developers, can mint new XRP, and such a move would offer no conceivable advantage to XRP stakeholders. Instead, the coin follows a deflationary model alongside its fixed supply.
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