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In a remarkable milestone, the first formal specification of the XRPL Payment Engine has now been published. This marks an important step toward bringing formal verification, which is a standard used in banking and aerospace, to core XRP Ledger components.
According to RippleX developer Vito Tumas, Ripple is working with Common Prefix, a blockchain research and development company, to specify and formally verify key components of the XRP Ledger: the Payment Engine and the Consensus Protocol.
In line with this, Common Prefix has documented XRPL's Payment Engine by publishing the first comprehensive specification of the system. This lays the foundation toward formal verification of the Payment Engine, followed by the Consensus protocol and then all crucial components of "xrpld."
The Payment Engine is the system responsible for all value transfer, including complex operations like crossing the decentralized exchange and rippling. The Consensus Protocol is the heart of the ledger, enabling nodes to reach consensus on a common state.
This initiative marks a crucial step in maturing the XRPL into a platform ready for the next decade of institutional finance and decentralized innovation.
What to expect
In 2012, when the XRP Ledger first went live, its creators had one major goal: to make a new, more efficient blockchain, with the limited resources available.
However, for the foundational components, the single C++ implementation, xrpld — which served as the only definitive source of truth — posed fundamental challenges.
XRP Ledger is advancing with new, highly complex features being continuously proposed and added. However, intricate amendments such as The Lending Protocol, Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) DEX, Batch Transactions and Permissioned DEXes must be integrated into the decades-old logic of the XRP Ledger, which raises questions.
In this light, establishing a formal specification builds a stronger foundation expected to deliver compounding benefits across the entire XRP Ledger ecosystem.
For instance, instead of relying solely on traditional testing, which can only prove the presence of bugs, formal methods might prove the absence of certain classes of bugs.
Currently, the Payment Engine specification is being built upon with formal verification beginning, and that of the Consensus Protocol in 2026.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team