Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has argued that a large-scale attack on the XRP Ledger could unexpectedly benefit XRP holders if his proposed transaction protection system is adopted.
Notably, the comments were made during a discussion on X about a proposal to eliminate front-running and sandwich attacks on the network.
However, while critics questioned whether the mechanism could withstand attacks from well-funded state actors, Schwartz dismissed those concerns, suggesting that such an attack would quickly become extremely expensive.
Meanwhile, responding to concerns that denial-of-service protections might not hold up against governments or state-backed actors, Schwartz said the network could simply raise the cost of carrying out such attacks to the point where they become impractical.
“If that happens, we can just raise the cost of the attack, and it would either stop or be, in effect, a huge financial gift from state actors to XRP holders,” Schwartz wrote.
 
Schwartz’s proposal introduces a transaction reservation system intended to prevent malicious actors from exploiting pending transactions before they are finalized on the XRP Ledger.
Specifically, the framework adds a new ledger object, ReservedTxns, alongside a TxnReserve transaction type. Users would be able to reserve execution slots for future ledgers by paying at least twice the standard transaction fee.
Under the proposal, reservations would only be available up to 16 ledger intervals in advance, with each ledger initially supporting a maximum of 32 reserved transaction slots.
Additionally, reserved transactions would only be broadcast after the previous ledger’s consensus process is effectively complete, limiting the opportunity for attackers to observe and insert competing transactions ahead of them.
He acknowledged that attackers could theoretically attempt to reserve every available transaction slot across multiple future ledgers, thereby preventing legitimate users from accessing the protection mechanism.
To counter that possibility, he proposed a dynamic fee model that automatically increases reservation costs as available slots become scarce.
In his example, fee increases would begin once half of the available reservation slots are filled and continue rising until reservation costs reach three times the base fee as capacity nears its limit. If demand grows, the reservation limit itself could also be expanded.
According to Schwartz, continuously paying elevated fees every few seconds would make sustained attacks economically impractical.
The Ripple executive also suggested that the fee escalation mechanism should not remain permanently fixed. Instead, validators could adjust the parameters through XRPL’s existing governance process.
This approach would allow the network to adjust reservation costs based on real-world conditions while avoiding unnecessary expenses for regular users.
Furthermore, he questioned whether any government-backed attacker would realistically spend significant sums merely to maintain the network at roughly its existing level of exposure to front-running.
Addressing that scenario directly, Schwartz argued that a state-backed attack would be economically ridiculous.
“It seems very weird to me to worry that any state actors or state-sponsored actors would want to give thousands of dollars an hour to XRP holders just to make the XRPL no more vulnerable to front running and sandwich attacks than it is now.” He tweeted.
Rather than relying solely on technical barriers, Schwartz’s proposal uses economic incentives to discourage abuse. Attackers willing to continue paying increasingly higher fees would effectively contribute value back to the XRP Ledger ecosystem through transaction fees.
That said, the proposal remains under discussion within the XRPL community as a market-based approach to deter front-running while potentially benefiting XRP holders.
At press time, XRP was trading at $1.08, reflecting a 2.46% gain in the past 24 hours.
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