David Schwartz has responded to new XRPL security concerns. | Source: CCN.
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Key Takeaways
David Schwartz proposes anti-front-running upgrade.
XRPL community raises fairness concerns.
$11 XRP price target questioned.
Former Ripple Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz has proposed a new transaction reservation mechanism for the XRP Ledger (XRPL) designed to prevent front-running attacks.
The proposal comes after renewed concerns that network participants can exploit pending trades before they are finalized.
Meanwhile, analysts continue to debate XRP’s long-term price, including a new exploration of whether the token could eventually reach $11.
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XRPL Marketplace Warns of Front-Running Security Risks
The proposal followed a post from XRP Ledger-based marketplace XRPresso, which argued that front-running remains an unresolved issue affecting ordinary users of XRPL’s decentralized exchange.
XRPresso said validators and well-connected nodes can observe transactions waiting in the network’s pre-validation queue before a ledger closes.
“They can quickly analyze a pending trade, determine if front-running or sandwiching it is profitable, and then spam their own transactions to try and game their position in the canonical order for that ledger,” the marketplace wrote on X.
According to XRPresso, submitting multiple transactions increases the probability of securing a favorable position in the ledger’s deterministic ordering process.
This allows sophisticated participants to extract value from other traders.
A serious front-running issue continues on the XRPL that disadvantages regular users.
Validators and well-connected nodes can view transactions in the pre-validation queue before a ledger closes.
They can quickly analyze a pending trade, determine if front-running or…
“This allows sophisticated actors to reliably extract value from other users’ trades — particularly on the DEX and AMM — often through sandwich attacks that worsen slippage for the original trader,” it said.
Although XRPL documentation states transaction ordering is intended to discourage front-running, XRPresso argued that “research and real-world observation have shown that this protection is not sufficient.”
“The result is an uneven playing field,” the post said.
The marketplace urged the XRPL community to prioritize improvements around transaction visibility and queue privacy.
Schwartz Proposes Transaction Reservation System
Responding to those concerns on June 29, Schwartz said he does not view front-running on XRPL as a major threat but outlined a “fairly simple scheme” that could eliminate the attack altogether.
His proposal introduces a new ledger object called ReservedTxns alongside a TxnReserve transaction type that would allow users to reserve an execution slot for a future transaction.
Under the proposal, users would pay at least twice the standard transaction fee to reserve a slot up to 16 ledgers in advance.
Reserved transactions would then execute before any subsequently created transactions once the designated ledger is processed.
Concerns have been raised about the possibility of front running or transaction sandwich attacks on XRPL payments and offer crossing.
For the reasons I've explained, I'm not that concerned about this issue. But I have a proposal for a fairly simple scheme that would eliminate… https://t.co/lnhTv1bhBK
— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) June 29, 2026
Schwartz said the reservation system “can ensure that a transaction executes before any transaction that was formed after it was disclosed.”
“This is the scheme, and it eliminates concerns about front running or sandwich attacks,” he wrote.
To reduce the risk of denial-of-service attacks, Schwartz proposed increasing reservation fees as available slots become scarce.
“A simple fix is to ratchet up the fees for the reservation transaction as the object starts to get full,” he wrote.
By progressively raising reservation costs, Schwartz argued an attacker “would have to pay, every five seconds, several times the most anyone would be willing to pay to protect their transaction.”
XRP Price To $11?
The discussion comes as Motley Fool analyst Johnny Rice recently examined whether XRP could eventually reach $11.
At the time of reporting, XRP’s price sits at just around $1.05.
In order for it to rise to $11, XRP’s market cap would need to grow to $680 billion. It’s current market cap is currently at around $68 billion.
“That’s a pretty large figure,” Rice wrote.
Adding: “It’s also nearly 4 times the market cap of Ethereum and just shy of 60% of Bitcoin’s market cap.”
Rice argued that many bullish forecasts overestimate how demand for the token is created.
He said many investors assume that broader adoption of Ripple’s technology would automatically translate into significantly higher demand for XRP.
However, Rice argued there are “threefold” reasons why he believes that assumption is flawed.
First, he said much of Ripple’s enterprise business does not rely on XRP.
“The majority of the transaction volume that Ripple handles doesn’t use XRP at all,” Rice wrote.
“That’s because its main product, the one used by the big banks you’ve heard of, is basically a messaging service. No XRP required.”
Second, Rice argued that Ripple’s payment products that do use XRP require the token to move through transactions rather than to be accumulated on corporate balance sheets.
Finally, Rice pointed to Ripple’s US dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD, arguing it has increasingly displaced XRP within Ripple’s payments ecosystem.
“RLUSD is eating XRP’s lunch,” he wrote.
According to Rice, stablecoins are inherently more attractive to financial institutions because their value remains stable.
As a result, Rice said he remains skeptical of predictions that XRP could generate 900% gains.
“So, do I think XRP can turn $1,000 into $10,000? No, I do not,” he wrote.
“I think it has a better chance of turning it into $500.”
Part of Broader Security Push Across XRPL
Schwartz’s proposal also comes as Ripple and the wider XRPL community continue advancing broader security upgrades.
“We’ve been working on quantum resistance for a little while,” Akinyele said.
He said Ripple’s cryptography team, XRPL Foundation developers and academic researchers began exploring post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024 and 2025.
Referencing Google’s quantum computing research, Akinyele said some projections suggest practical threats to existing encryption could emerge as early as 2029.
“Regardless of where the reality hits, we can’t afford to be unprepared,” he said.
“We actually have to be proactive to prepare for the worst-case scenario.”
Akinyele added that institutional interest in XRPL has strengthened following reduced regulatory uncertainty surrounding Ripple.
“I think the market is very much shifting back to the technology because the use cases are real,” he said.
He pointed to rising daily transaction volumes and expanding usage of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, adding:
Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN, specialising in the fast-moving worlds of crypto and emerging technology. He began his career covering local news in Cornwall after graduating from Falmouth University with First Class Honours in Journalism. There, he cut his teeth on everything from council meetings to missing swans.
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Following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt shifted his focus to technology journalism—just ahead of the AI boom. With a natural curiosity and a trained eye for emerging trends, he has found a new rhythm in reporting on innovation.
At CCN, Kurt's work focuses on the cutting edge of crypto, blockchain, AI, and the evolving digital world. Drawing on his background in people-first reporting and his deep interest in disruptive tech, Kurt delivers stories that are insightful, entertaining, and human-centric.
