The XRP Ledger Foundation has responded to questions around a recent security fix, saying the vulnerability did not create any new XRP and that the network’s total supply remains fixed at 100 billion tokens, as set when the ledger launched. According to the foundation, the flaw could have bypassed that rule under specific conditions, but it was patched in version 3.4.1 about two weeks ago. Public ledger data currently shows about 99.986 billion XRP in existence.
The foundation also addressed why the issue was not discovered earlier. It said ordinary payment transactions were not enough to trigger the bug, which required hundreds of deliberately crafted operations. It added that AI is accelerating discovery on both sides, helping attackers and security researchers find this class of issue faster.
On governance, the foundation said an open amendment vote would have exposed the location of the vulnerability too early. Instead, participants across the community, including XRPLF, RippleX, core developers and validator nodes, reached social consensus to release a direct patch. The mandatory rollout of version 3.4.1 still followed the network’s standard amendment voting process, requiring support from more than 80% of validators for two weeks.
The XRP Ledger Foundation said a recently discussed security flaw did not result in any new XRP being created.
In a statement, the foundation said XRP’s total supply was fixed at 100 billion when the ledger launched, and no transaction can mint additional tokens. It said the vulnerability could previously have bypassed that rule, but the issue was fixed in version 3.4.1 about two weeks ago. Public ledger data remains available for review, and about 99.986 billion XRP currently exists, according to the foundation.
Why the flaw was hard to detect
The foundation said ordinary payment transactions were far from enough to trigger the bug. Instead, exploiting it would have required hundreds of deliberately constructed operations. It also said AI is making this type of vulnerability easier to discover for both malicious actors and security researchers.
As follow-up steps, the foundation said it will strengthen formal verification, expand AI adversarial testing, work more closely with security researchers, and reinforce its bug bounty program.
How the patch moved forward
On decentralization and the repair process, the foundation said a public amendment vote would have revealed the location of the flaw in advance. It said the community, including XRPLF, RippleX, core developers, and validator nodes, reached social consensus to publish a direct patch.
No single party could make that decision on its own, the foundation said. Each validator and node operator remained free to choose which software to run. The mandatory enforcement of version 3.4.1 was carried out through the ledger’s normal amendment voting mechanism, which requires support from more than 80% of validator nodes for two weeks. Protocol changes, it added, still follow the amendment process.
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