Ripple’s Ex Chief Engineer Slams New XRP Ledger Expansion Plan as ‘Really Bad Idea’

An attempt to expand the capabilities of XRP Ledger (XRPL) has sparked a heated technical debate in the crypto community. The discussion was triggered by a radical proposal to increase the limit of the transaction Memo field by 1,200 times, from the current 1 KB to approximately 1.3 MB. 

Blockchain enthusiasts have already begun discussing the upgrade’s “limitless potential,” but some have called for a sober assessment of the risks.

The authors of the idea, including Vet from the XRPL Foundation, want to allow users to embed files directly into the ledger. The new limit would make it possible to upload the following content in XRPL transactions:

• Images and PDF documents;
• Music tracks and short video clips;
• Software source code and compressed archives.

The proposed change is justified by the principle of freedom of choice — if a network participant is prepared to pay the fee for storing their content, the protocol should provide that option.

Matt Hamilton pushes Filecoin alternative

The initiative’s main critic is Matt Hamilton, a former developer relations director at Ripple. Commenting on the proposal, he criticized the initiative and directly called the new expansion plan “a really bad idea.”

The problem lies in XRPL’s architecture. The blockchain operates as a distributed payment ledger, not a file-sharing service. For the network to remain secure and synchronized, every validator and node must store the entire transaction history.

If XRP Ledger users begin filling the ledger with large media files, the database will start growing exponentially, Hamilton warned. 

This would significantly increase hardware requirements, make operating nodes too expensive for independent participants and, in the long term, threaten the network’s decentralization.

Drawing on his experience developing blockchain protocols, Hamilton pointed to more efficient engineering approaches that already exist. Specialized decentralized data storage networks, such as Filecoin, are designed for large files.

According to the expert, this hybrid approach allows users to work with any type of media content while keeping XRP Ledger what it was originally designed to be: a fast, lightweight and scalable payment tool.