XRP Ledger has hosted a native decentralized exchange since 2012, and that design is back in focus after a presentation at Solana Summit Germany put a new trading model on display. The renewed comparison centers on structure: XRPL’s DEX is built around a central limit order book, or CLOB, rather than forcing trades through automated market maker pools alone.
Hamilton says old XRPL design addressed issues still being revisited
Hamilton said on social media that several market-structure problems being discussed by developers today had already been handled on XRP Ledger years earlier. He said development started as early as 2011, with the network going live a year later. In his view, parts of the industry are repeatedly trying to solve the same set of problems, even though the XRPL DEX model was implemented nearly 15 years ago.
The source article notes that users on XRPL can trade XRP and other tokens directly on the network. Fees have remained low, and those charges are directed to network operations instead of intermediaries. Over time, that setup has been recognized for stability and efficiency.
Mato pushes auction-based matching and anti-front-running design
The latest debate followed a presentation by Thomas Gehrmann, founder of Mato, a new Solana-based project introduced at Solana Summit Germany. Gehrmann described Mato as a fully decentralized exchange model intended to remove intermediaries, reduce front-running risk, and match orders through auctions.
The report also outlined the distinction between two common DEX structures. A CLOB arranges buy and sell orders by price and quantity. An AMM executes trades through liquidity pools with automated pricing. Hamilton argued that many of the issues Solana projects such as Mato are trying to address had already been considered and solved in XRPL’s infrastructure years ago. Even so, the article notes that models like Mato are drawing fresh attention across the sector.
XRPL’s DEX does not require traders to stay inside an AMM model
A key point in the comparison is that XRPL’s DEX uses a CLOB and does not require users to rely on AMMs to execute trades. The network does support AMM-based swaps, but participation is not restricted to that route. That leaves XRPL in a different position from many DEX platforms that depend primarily or entirely on pool-based trading systems.
XRPL validator Vet also joined the discussion, saying he was curious how the market would view the network if it were launching today. It was a short remark, but it captured the larger question behind the debate: how much relevance an early on-chain exchange architecture still holds in the current crypto market.
Lending proposal shows the infrastructure is still being expanded
XRPL’s exchange layer is still evolving. One of the latest proposals now under vote is the Lending Protocol, a DeFi component designed to issue fixed-term, unsecured loans on-chain and fund them through single-asset vaults.
That detail shifts the conversation beyond legacy alone. As new DEX models continue to attract attention, older systems such as XRP Ledger are being examined again on their technical merits. The central issue raised in the article is straightforward: whether the original XRPL architecture still fits today’s market structure debates.