Who writes and pays for the XRP Ledger's software, and could it continue without Ripple?

The full answer

The XRP Ledger runs on server software kept in a public GitHub repository under the XRPL Foundation’s account. Its README says: “A team of full-time developers at Ripple & other organizations maintain and continually improve the XRP Ledger’s underlying software with contributions from the open-source community.” The code uses a permissive ISC open-source license, and the repository showed 14,504 commits on September 29, 2026.[1]

How much of the code does Ripple write?

How much of the code Ripple writes is not published. XRPL.org’s FAQ says Ripple “contributes to a reference implementation of the core XRP Ledger server (rippled) and employs a team of engineers who contribute to the open-source codebase.”[2] Neither the FAQ nor the repository gives a split between Ripple staff and everyone else. The XRPL.org FAQ says Ripple contributes to a reference implementation of the core XRP Ledger server (rippled) and employs a team of engineers who contribute to the open-source codebase; the passage we checked does not quantify that contribution. GitHub’s contributors list for XRPLF/rippled, fetched September 29, 2026, gives account logins and commit counts for each contributor but no employer.[15]

The process for getting code in is open. XRPL.org says anyone can “download, modify, extend, or explore” the code; once “the pull request is approved by XRP Ledger maintainers, your code is merged,” and changes to how transactions are processed become amendments that “validators vote on.”[3] The page does not name the maintainers or their employers. Who casts those votes is explained on how XRPL amendments are approved.

Recent security reports do name people outside Ripple. XRPL.org published the February 2026 report on a bug in the Batch amendment, bylined XRPL Labs.[4] Researchers “from Common Prefix” found the transaction-set bugs XRPL.org disclosed on March 23, 2026.[5] XRPL.org’s August 2026 report on the July manifest flood thanks Ripple, the XRPL Foundation and Peersyst, among others, for helping resolve it.[6]

Who pays for the work?

Ripple said on February 26, 2026 that it had invested billions of dollars over the past decade, including more than $550 million deployed directly into XRPL ecosystem initiatives since 2017, and on March 17, 2022 it committed 1 billion XRP to be disbursed over 10 to 20 years through its grants program and accelerator; as of October 1, 2026, I could not find any other funder publishing a comparable figure. Ripple’s own figures are these.

• In a Business Wire release on March 17, 2022, Ripple said it was committing 1 billion XRP to development and new uses of the XRP Ledger, and that its grants program had awarded $6 million to more than 50 open-source projects. The release returned an access error when fetched for this check, so its wording is not quoted here; Ripple’s 2024 post also refers to “a 1B XRP Grants Program.”[7][8]
• Its May 9, 2024 post said “the XRPL Grants Program has awarded more than 140 projects from 28 different countries.”[8]
• Ripple’s February 26, 2026 post said: “Since 2017, more than $550 million of that has been deployed directly into XRPL ecosystem initiatives, including non-equity grants, builder incentives, strategic partnerships, and growth programs.”[9]

These are Ripple’s numbers, and no independent audit of them was found. They cover the wider ecosystem, not only the core server.

The XRPL Foundation was founded September 24, 2020. XRPL.org says it “received an initial donation of over $6.5M from Coil, Ripple, and Gatehub.”[10] In September 2025 XRPL.org said “stewardship of the XRP Ledger has moved to a new XRPL Foundation,” which now publishes a default validator list.[11] The new foundation’s website describes it as “a registered association under the 1901 law” in Paris and does not publish its funding.[12] XRPL Commons, a non-profit association whose March 2023 launch release is datelined Paris, said it would “work alongside the XRP Ledger Foundation and Ripple”; its funders were not found on its site.[13]

Is Ripple trying to reduce that dependence?

Ripple says it is trying to reduce that dependence. Ripple wrote in February 2026 that “2026 marks a shift toward a more distributed model, where independent organizations, regional hubs, venture partners, and community-led initiatives play a larger role,” with the goal that “no single organization becomes the sole gatekeeper for ecosystem support.”[9] DL News reported the named routes as including XRPL Commons, the XAO DAO, XRP Asia and venture firms such as Dragonfly, Pantera and Franklin Templeton.[14] The shift is recent, and no later report on how much money these routes have provided was found.

Could the XRP Ledger continue without Ripple?

On the question of continuity, the network could keep running without Ripple. XRPL.org’s FAQ says: “If Ripple stops operating or acts maliciously, participants can change their UNLs to use a list from a different publisher.”[2] Validators are run by independent operators, and the XRPL Foundation publishes its own list.[11]

Software upkeep is the weaker link. Ripple employs engineers on the core server,[2] it is the largest funder named in any source found for this page, and the share of code it writes is unknown. A Ripple exit would test whether other groups could take on that engineering load; the scenario is examined on what would happen if Ripple failed. The opposite reading, that Ripple’s role amounts to control, is weighed on does Ripple control XRP.