Many members of the blockchain community have questioned the sufficient decentralization of the Ripple protocol. These doubts were dispelled by the technical director of Ripple, David Schwartz. In his opinion, the distributed ledger of XRP is more decentralized than Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently viewed as the gold standard for decentralization — meaning they are architected in a way that no single individual or minority group can dictate rules or rewrite transaction history (the power of blockchain!). Since these blockchains are considered decentralized, then by design, the XRP Ledger is also — if not more so — decentralized than both Bitcoin and Ethereum.

He also stresses that 80% of the mining capacity of bitcoin is concentrated in China. At the same time, 58% of the capacity is in the hands of four groups of miners. Also, three groups of Ethereum miners hold control over 57% of the capacity. At the same time, a group of miners, controlling 51% of the capacity, can conduct an attack on the blockchain.

David Schwartz cites Ripple as an example, in which, to record the change in the blockchain, it is necessary that for some time 80% of the validators confirm this change.

While Bitcoin and Ethereum are becoming more centralized over time, the XRP Ledger is getting more decentralized.

Some members of the blockchain community criticized the statements of David Schwartz.