XRP Ledger Bypassed Its Amendment Vote to Patch a Token-Minting Flaw
By Coinvote
XRP Ledger maintainers disclosed a payment-engine overflow, present since 2015, that could have let an attacker create spendable XRP in a single transaction. The maintainers bypassed the usual amendment process to deploy the fix, Decrypt reported.
A payment-engine flaw that stayed hidden for a decade
The XRP Ledger's maintainers have patched and publicly described a severe flaw in the payment-processing code that could have let an attacker create XRP that never existed. Decrypt reported that a researcher flagged the problem in September under the XRPL bug bounty program, and that the maintainers published their disclosure on a Friday.
According to Decrypt, RippleX engineers confirmed that the weakness dates to 2015, when the current payment engine was written. It went unnoticed because ordinary payments never come near the conditions that trigger it.
The Block quantified the exposure: a single transaction could have created about 18 trillion XRP that was fully spendable. The Defiant reported that developers found no evidence of exploitation on a public network.
How an arithmetic wrap-around becomes free XRP
In the scenario Decrypt describes, a single payment sweeps through hundreds of specially crafted offers on the order book while the engine adds up what the buyer owes. That running total passes the largest value the software can store and rolls over to a very small number.
Sellers were credited in full while the buyer was charged next to nothing, and the gap was XRP that should never have existed. Decrypt reported that the maintainers said an attacker could then have moved, traded or sent the new coins to exchanges.
Integer overflow is a long-known class of programming error: numbers occupy a fixed amount of space, so a calculation that passes the ceiling wraps around instead of failing. According to Decrypt, the check built into the ledger to confirm that no transaction creates XRP did its sums in the same defective way, so the overflow slipped past it unnoticed.
Shipping the fix without the usual validator vote
Changes to how the XRP Ledger processes transactions normally go through the amendment process, in which validators vote and a two-week wait must pass before activation. Decrypt reported that version 3.4.1 was released on Sept. 25 outside that process. The outlet described this as the first deliberate use of that exception for a transaction-processing change since the amendment system began more than a decade earlier.
According to Decrypt, the maintainers judged the seriousness of the flaw to warrant making an exception. Because the fix is published as open-source code, shipping it through the normal route would have exposed the weakness publicly while the network stayed vulnerable for weeks.
Validator adoption.
- Decrypt reported that more than 80% of trusted validators had adopted the patched version on its release day.
XRP market data.
Decrypt also covered the market, reporting XRP at $1.38 on Monday, down 1.6% over 24 hours and 9.4% over seven days. CoinGecko's current figures differ, at down 2.8% over a day and down 8.2% over a week, with a 30-day gain of 0.6%. Decrypt placed the move beside the disclosure but did not say the flaw caused it.
Why a token-creating bug is a different kind of risk
A flaw that creates tokens threatens every holder at once, because it dilutes existing balances rather than draining one wallet. XRP ranks fifth by market capitalization on CoinGecko at $86.84 billion, a measure of how much value rests on the ledger's accounting being right.
Decrypt compared the episode with a counterfeiting scare at Zcash earlier this year, when a soundness bug in the shielded pool opened the door to forged coins and developers hurried to patch it. ZEC dropped sharply before the Ironwood upgrade resolved the matter.
Teams that run their own XRPL servers can check their release against 3.4.1, the version that carries the fix. Anyone relying on a third-party node can ask its operator which release it runs.
Open questions after the patch
Decrypt's account does not say whether the ledger's built-in check was also changed so that it no longer shares arithmetic with the payment path. The reporting does not establish how widely the patch has been adopted since its release day.
A final open question is precedent. Decrypt described the bypassed amendment vote as a first for a transaction-processing change, and it is not yet clear whether the severity argument will remain a one-off or shape how future emergency fixes are handled.
Market snapshot
| Asset | Price | 24h | 7d | Market cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XRP (XRP) | $1.38 | -2.8% | -8.2% | $86.84 billion |
CoinGecko data as of 2026-10-13 (UTC).
FAQ
Was the XRP Ledger bug ever exploited?
How could the bug have created XRP?
Why did the fix skip the usual validator vote?
Sources
- Decrypt: XRP Ledger’s Payment Engine Had a Counterfeiting Bug Hiding Since 2015 (2026-10-12)
- The Block: XRP Ledger patches decade-old bug that could have minted trillions of XRP (2026-10-11)
- The Defiant: XRP Ledger Discloses Decade-Old Bug That Could Mint Trillions (2026-10-11)
- CoinGecko (market data)
Written by the Coinvote news desk from reporting by Decrypt, The Block and The Defiant. Not financial advice.
