XRP Ledger Fixes Long-Standing Vulnerability That Could Generate Billions of XRP

Tech The XRP Ledger has addressed a significant flaw that could have enabled the creation of billions of dollars in XRP without any underlying funding.

Emergency Software Update Prompted by Research Findings

By Shaurya Malwa Updated Oct 10, 2026, 12:50 a.m. EDT Published Oct 10, 2026, 12:20 a.m. EDT 2 min read

A vulnerability identified by researchers could have allowed the generation of new, spendable XRP, undermining the cryptocurrency’s fixed supply of 100 billion tokens. This flaw, discovered in the XRP Ledger’s payment system, stemmed from a miscalculation within its integrated exchange, potentially allowing attackers to acquire large quantities of XRP for minimal costs.

• The weakness, traced back to 2015, was highlighted by researcher Cayden Liao and the team at Veria AI, with findings reported internally on September 22.
• RippleX, the development division of Ripple, confirmed that they could replicate the exploit on a standalone server, demonstrating that the illicitly generated XRP could indeed be utilized in subsequent transactions.
• However, RippleX stated that there was no evidence indicating that the vulnerability had been exploited on any public networks.

When the XRP Ledger was launched in 2012, all 100 billion XRP were created, and the system was designed to prevent any additional tokens from being generated. Despite this, the identified vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to fabricate XRP and trade it on exchanges, thereby disrupting the established supply cap critical for institutional users of the network.

The exploit was made possible through the ledger’s built-in exchange, where users post offers to swap tokens. In theory, an attacker could create numerous accounts, each proposing a small amount of a different token in exchange for a disproportionately large amount of XRP. By sending a single payment that accepted all offers simultaneously, the total XRP owed would exceed the software's counting capacity, allowing the attacker to receive full payment for their selling accounts while the purchasing account incurred negligible costs.

The XRP Ledger conducts checks after each transaction to ensure no new XRP has been created, but this mechanism would have failed due to the counting error, which would have gone unnoticed. Additionally, a limit on the amount of XRP a single account can receive wouldn’t have activated, as the XRP was distributed across many accounts.

Opening these accounts required only a small amount of XRP, most of which could be reclaimed, plus transaction fees.

Developers released the fix in the xrpld 3.4.1 update on September 25, although details regarding the specific issue addressed were not disclosed.

This incident is part of a series of previously undisclosed security vulnerabilities in the cryptocurrency space that have been uncovered with the assistance of AI since July, including a flaw in the Coldcard wallet linked to the theft of at least 1,367 BTC and other issues that prompted Core Lightning to advise bitcoin node operators to disconnect.

Read More: XRP Ledger adds new controls for banks, stablecoins and tokenized funds

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