Becki Kautzman

#XRPLedgerPatchesXRPCreationBug $XRP Ledger recently addressed a critical flaw that had persisted for a decade, potentially allowing for the creation of billions of dollars in $XRP , which could have undermined its fixed supply cap of 100 billion XRP. The issue, identified in the payment engine's offer aggregation, dates back to 2015 and was discovered by researchers Cayden Liao and Veria AI. It was reported through a bug bounty program on September 22 and was quietly resolved in version 3.4.1 of xrpld on September 25, bypassing the usual amendment vote for the first time in ten years. The exploit functioned by enabling an attacker to open hundreds of accounts, each making small offers for large quantities of XRP. A single payment could process all offers at once, resulting in an overflow of the total XRP owed, which would wrap to a much smaller number. Consequently, sellers would receive full payment while the buyer would incur minimal costs, generating newly minted XRP that did not previously exist. The ledger's supply verification utilized the same flawed calculations, allowing the exploit to go undetected. Additionally, the distribution across multiple accounts circumvented individual account limits. The initial cost to set up this scheme was only a few hundred XRP in reserves and fees, most of which could be recouped. RippleX successfully reproduced the issue and confirmed that the counterfeit XRP was spendable. On a positive note, there is no evidence that this exploit was ever utilized on the mainnet, and over 80% of validators upgraded promptly. Security is a key concern and this resolution is viewed positively for the long-term outlook of the $XRP Ledger. #xrp #Ripple💰