Ex-Ripple CTO Proposes XRP Ledger Reserve Transactions to Fix Front-Running Attacks
David Schwartz, former CTO of Ripple and a core developer of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), has proposed a transaction reservation scheme to address concerns over front-running and sandwich attacks on the network’s decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market makers (AMMs).
Community members raised worries that validators and well-connected nodes could view transactions in the pre-validation queue, analyze pending trades, and spam multiple transactions to gain favorable positions. While XRPL executes transactions in mixed orders to discourage front-running, some argued the protection was insufficient.
Schwartz acknowledged the issue but noted he was not overly concerned. However, he introduced a proposal: a new ledger object called ReservedTxns that would hold an array of transaction IDs for a specific future ledger. Users would submit a new transaction type, TxnReserve, to book a slot by paying at least double the normal fee. Reservations are limited to the next 16 ledgers and capped at 32 slots per ledger.
Once a slot is reserved, the transaction is broadcast only after the previous ledger’s consensus set is known, preventing front-running. Reserved transactions execute first in the order they were reserved. Schwartz added that built-in denial-of-service (DoS) protection would require attackers to pay continuously, and others could simply wait out the attack.
Meanwhile, XRP price remained in the $1.03-$1.05 range over the past 24 hours, with trading volume up 25%. Total XRP futures open interest rose 0.80% to $2.36 billion, with increases on CME and Binance during the XRPL 3.2.0 upgrade. Analyst Crypto Tony warned of a potential 30% drop from current levels if key support breaks.