Ripple Says Asset Managers Gear Up for XRP Ledger Payments Upgrade

The upcoming Batch V1.1 upgrade is designed to make linked asset and payment transfers either complete together or fail as a group. Ripple says commercial projects are already being developed around the feature following a comprehensive security review.

Ripple said asset managers and other commercial initiatives are preparing to use an XRP Ledger capability that allows multiple related transactions to settle as a single operation. A redesigned version of the feature is now moving toward activation after undergoing an extensive security assessment.

Known as Batch V1.1, the feature can bundle up to eight transactions into one operation. Its all-or-nothing functionality means every transaction in the group must succeed, otherwise the entire batch is canceled. This helps prevent situations where one part of a transaction settles while the other side fails.

Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, told CoinDesk that Ripple plans to provide more details after the feature goes live, including information about work involving major asset managers.

“Batch allows multiple transactions to be grouped together so they either all execute or none do,” Akinyele said. He added that this is especially useful for delivery-versus-payment transactions, where an asset and its corresponding payment must be transferred at the same time.

Delivery-versus-payment connects the movement of an asset with the payment for that asset. Rather than requiring one party to transfer funds or assets first, the ledger executes both sides simultaneously or cancels the entire transaction.

The Batch functionality could also help exchanges, wallets and marketplaces include their service fees within a customer’s transaction. Instead of handling the payment and platform fee as separate transfers, both could be completed as part of one operation.

Akinyele said some projects are already being developed with Batch V1.1 in mind. Once the feature is activated, those initiatives could move closer to production. RippleX plans to provide additional information about specific partners and launch schedules once those details are finalized.

The amendment has received support from 30 of the XRP Ledger’s 35 tracked validators, exceeding the 28 votes needed to begin the activation countdown.

Feature Returns After Earlier Security Issues

The activation countdown started on Sept. 15 at 14:06:41 UTC. Batch V1.1 is expected to activate shortly after 14:06:41 UTC on Sept. 29, provided validator support remains at or above the required 80% throughout the entire 14-day period. Because validators can change their votes, the activation date is not guaranteed.

The latest activation effort follows a security issue that forced developers to withdraw the original Batch implementation.

Researchers identified a critical vulnerability in Batch V1.0’s signature-validation mechanism in February. In certain circumstances, the code could stop validating signatures prematurely, potentially allowing an attacker to add transactions belonging to another account without authorization.

The amendment had not yet been activated when the vulnerability was discovered and was still under consideration by validators. As a result, the affected code never controlled the live XRP Ledger and no user funds were exposed.

Akinyele said RippleX went beyond simply fixing the individual vulnerability before submitting the feature for another validator vote.

The team used the incident to conduct a deeper examination of the implementation, redesign portions of the signing and authorization architecture, and substantially broaden the security review, he said.

The revised implementation was included in xrpld version 3.3.0, which was released on Aug. 6. According to Akinyele, the code in that release is the same implementation validators are currently voting on for activation.

The security process included internal adversarial testing, AI-assisted analysis, a Sherlock attack contest and reviews conducted by security companies Halborn and Common Prefix.

Akinyele said the process was intended to establish a significantly higher security standard. RippleX identified the serious V1.0 issue before activation, halted the rollout, redesigned and strengthened the implementation, expanded the review process and only then returned Batch V1.1 to validators for approval.

The amendment will remain in its current countdown until Sept. 29. If validator support falls below 80% before that date, the countdown will pause. A fresh 14-day activation period will then be required once the proposal again reaches the necessary level of validator support.

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