Ripple's David Schwartz Proposes 32-Slot ReservedTxns Fix for XRP Front-Running

XRP News

Ripple former chief technology officer David Schwartz has proposed a new transaction-reservation model for the XRP Ledger aimed at neutralizing front-running and sandwich attacks on the network, the centerpiece development for XRP (XRP) over the past 24 hours. Schwartz, still one of the protocol's most active architects, outlined a scheme called ReservedTxns that would let users lock an execution slot in a future ledger before their order becomes visible on-chain. The proposal responds to community concerns that validators and well-connected nodes can observe pending transactions and reorder around them on the XRP Ledger DEX and its Automated Market Maker. Schwartz called the risk real but overstated for XRP.

The mechanism centers on a new ledger object, ReservedTxns, that stores transaction identifiers earmarked for a specific upcoming ledger. Users would broadcast a separate transaction type called TxnReserve, paying at least double the standard fee to secure their place in the ordering queue. According to the design Schwartz published, the reserved transaction is only released after the prior ledger's consensus set is known, making it far harder for a malicious actor to see the order in advance and slot ahead of it. Reserved entries execute before ordinary transactions in the target ledger, following reservation sequence rather than the network's usual deterministic hash-based ordering.

The numbers built into the proposal are deliberately conservative. Reservations can only be made for the next 16 ledgers, and each ledger caps the number of reserved slots at 32, a limit Schwartz framed as a guard against network overload while preserving efficiency. Securing a slot alone does not guarantee settlement; the user must still meet the normal conditions for the underlying trade or payment to succeed. The two-step flow — first a reservation specifying a future ledger sequence and a transaction ID, then the actual order — requires two submissions per protected trade, the cost Schwartz argues sophisticated traders should accept for stronger anti-blind-signing guarantees.

The debate ignited on social platform X after community members argued that validators and tightly connected nodes gain a timing edge by watching pending transactions before each ledger closes. Because the XRP Ledger uses a deterministic ordering formula based on publicly available transaction hashes, advanced actors can locate where an order will land relative to a target trade and exploit the gap, worsening slippage for ordinary users. Schwartz rejected the framing that the ledger leaves retail traders broadly exposed, but acknowledged the underlying concern is legitimate enough to merit a structural fix rather than dismissal — a notable concession from one of the protocol's original designers.

Schwartz laid out several mitigating factors drawn from his earlier positions on XRP Ledger design. Pending transactions, he noted, are visible to everyone before a ledger closes, so no single party holds exclusive early access. A lone validator gains no meaningful advantage, and coordinating multiple validators would leave clear evidence because each one signs every proposal and validation. He warned that any validator caught attempting such behavior — or colluding with others — would be obvious to the entire network and immediately stripped from participants' trust lists, the curated sets of validators each node chooses to follow.

Schwartz also pointed to the economics. Confirmed sandwich attacks on the XRP Ledger, beyond proof-of-concept testing, remain unreported. A profitable attack requires high liquidity to justify the effort yet low liquidity to move the price meaningfully — two conditions that rarely coincide, in his assessment. Market activity around the discussion stayed firm: XRP traded in a roughly 1.03 to 1.05 dollar band over the session while 24-hour volume climbed about 25%, signaling renewed trader engagement. Derivatives open interest also pushed higher alongside the spot move, a backdrop that has sharpened scrutiny of how the ledger handles ordering for active altcoin traders.

Our reading of COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite scoring engine places the heaviest near-term floor for XRP at 0.9963 dollars, rated 75/100 (strong) on the confluence of the ATR Lower band and Donchian Lower channel, with a tighter 1.0333 support scoring 65/100 from the prior-day low and Stochastic oversold reading. Overhead, the engine scores the 1.2153 resistance at 72/100, driven by the volume point of control and Keltner Upper band. With spot at 1.0442, an RSI of 31.8 and a bearish MACD confirm the prevailing downtrend, while a slightly negative perpetual funding rate of -0.0004% and a long-heavy 2.99 long/short account ratio (74.9% long) hint at crowded positioning. A Fear & Greed reading of 12 (Extreme Fear) frames the tape; reclaiming 1.0475 would open 1.2153, whereas losing 0.9963 invalidates the bullish case toward 0.8622.