Ripple Explores Native XRP Staking for XRPL

Ripple just put a big idea on the table: native staking for XRP. In a move first highlighted by ForkLog, RippleX’s head of engineering J. Ayo Akinyele and Ripple CTO David Schwartz shared draft approaches that would add staking mechanics directly to the XRP Ledger (XRPL)—a network that, to date, has no native staking and burns fees instead of distributing them to validators. The plan is at the discussion stage, not a done deal, but it’s already igniting debate across the XRP ecosystem.

What Ripple is actually proposing

The drafts are conceptual and aim to answer two hard questions: how to create a safe, incentive-aligned staking system on XRPL, and how to fund rewards without handing outsized power to any single party. Schwartz outlined two high-level models:

1. A dual-layer consensus design.
   An inner layer of roughly 16 validators would be chosen via stake to advance the ledger, while an outer layer(the existing consensus) would select/oversee that inner group. Staking and slashing rules would deter double-signing and other bad behavior. The goal: earn rewards while maintaining XRPL’s safety properties and minimizing centralization risks.
2. An alternative incentive structure (less defined) that still ties validator selection or rewards to contributed stake—again with an emphasis on not letting stake equal absolute control. The message from Ripple leadership: staking could enhance security and utility if designed carefully, but it would require significant changes to XRPL’s core.

Crucially, none of this is live code. It’s a request for comments—the first step in a process that, on XRPL, ultimately runs through the network’s amendment governance. (You can track protocol-level changes on the public Known Amendments list; as of now, there is no active amendment to add native staking.)

How this differs from liquid staking

If you saw news this fall about mXRP promising 6–8% yields, that was a custodial/bridged liquid staking token issued by third parties, not a protocol feature. mXRP wraps bridged XRP and deploys strategies to earn yield on the XRPL’s EVM side; it introduces bridge, smart-contract, and counterparty risks and is not native staking on XRPL. Ripple’s new discussion is explicitly about building staking into the ledger itself.

Why talk about XRP staking now?

Two forces are converging:

• XRPL’s DeFi ambitions. As XRPL broadens beyond payments—think EVM compatibility and on-chain finance—native yield could help anchor liquidity on XRPL rather than pushing holders to wrapped products on other chains. CoinDesk’s market coverage has already flagged the staking discussion as a development to watch for XRPL’s DeFi path.
• Security and participation incentives. A staking-based carrot can draw more validators and infrastructure providers, but only if it avoids centralization. That’s why Schwartz’s drafts lean on two-tier safeguards and slashing, and why the team keeps emphasizing that this would be a major architectural change, not a toggle.

What’s not decided yet

• Reward source. Where do staking rewards come from? The drafts acknowledge this is a first-order design choice—protocol emissions, re-routing of fees, or some other mechanism—and it has implications for token economics and governance. Yahoo Finance’s coverage underscores that a clear, fair reward source and distribution is prerequisite to any native staking plan.
• Validator selection & slashing. The inner-layer validator set and the slashing conditions must reduce attacks without making the system brittle or handing gatekeeping power to a few entities. CMC’s Academy write-up summarizes the design goal: incentivize good behavior while keeping XRPL’s decentralization guarantees intact. 
• Governance & rollout. Even a perfect whiteboard design would still need an XRPL amendment, broad community support, and careful testnet trials. For now, the Known Amendments page has no staking item, so the conversation is best viewed as exploratory.

Community reactions: cautious curiosity

Reactions range from “finally” to “be careful.” Some see native XRP staking as the missing piece to retain capital inside the XRPL economy; others worry that staking = influence and could drift XRPL’s ethos toward stake-weighted control. A number of neutral observers note that any credible plan must preserve the Unique Node List (UNL) dynamics and avoid perverse incentives. Media roundups from Yahoo and CoinMarketCap capture both the excitement and the caveats.

What this could unlock—if it lands

• On-ledger yield to rival wrapped/LST options elsewhere, potentially keeping XRP liquidity native.
• Stronger validator economics, encouraging more professional infrastructure and wider geographical distribution.
• A clearer runway for XRPL DeFi (lending, AMMs, structured strategies) that taps staking yields without leaving XRPL’s trust model.

But again, the distance between a draft and production is measured in design reviews, amendments, and hard testing.

Conclusion

As the staking conversation unfolds, watch three signals: a concrete XRPL amendment proposal, design updates on reward funding and slashing, and signs that XRPL’s DeFi roadmap is aligning around native liquidity rather than off-ledger wrappers. If those pieces come together, native XRP staking could shift both the economics and the governance conversation around one of crypto’s oldest payment-grade ledgers.