Ripple CTO Reveals He Was Hired To Find Alternative To Proof of Work As XRPL Is The First Not To Use PoW

October 13, 2022 Editor Ripple 0

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Ripple CTO David Schwartz Reveals That He Was Hired To Find An Alternative To PoW At Ripple As He Asserts XRPL Is The First Not To Use PoW.

The XRP Ledger is unique and represents a historic feat, paving the way for other technologies to choose their path.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is one of the oldest blockchain networks and, unsurprisingly, one with increasing adoption and several payment applications thanks to Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity service.

One of the lesser-known facts about the network is that it was the first not to use proof-of-work (PoW), as highlighted by Ripple’s chief technology officer and one of the original XRPL designers, David Schwartz. Notably, Schwartz claims that the solution to replacing the PoW consensus model was the basis for which Ripple founder Jed McCaleb hired him.

“Yep,” Schwartz said in response to an inquiry by Stefan Huber asking if XRPL is the first not to use PoW. “When Jed McCaleb first hired me back in 2011, the question he hired me to answer was whether you could swap out PoW for a distributed agreement algorithm more like PBFT and keep bitcoin’s benefits.”

It bears mentioning that XRPL is unique as it does not use PoW or proof-of-stake (PoS) but instead uses a proprietary consensus algorithm designed by Schwartz, Noah Youngs, and Arthur Britto. Notably, the protocol is capable of reaching a consensus without complete agreement on which nodes make up the network.

As reported by The Crypto Basic days ago, a patent document revealed that Schwartz might have come up with the XRPL concept in 1988. Notably, Ripple, the company behind the network, is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as the regulator hopes to prove that the network’s native token, XRP is an unregistered security.

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