XRP Ledger Nears Approval for Major New Payments Upgrade

XRP Ledger Nears Batch V1.1 Activation

Batch V1.1 could allow users to group up to eight related transactions into a single operation, with 27 of the XRP Ledger’s 35 trusted validators supporting the amendment in the latest Tuesday snapshot.

The XRP Ledger, a blockchain designed for global payments, is now only one validator vote away from reaching the approval level needed to activate the feature. The upgrade is designed to make multi-step transactions easier by allowing several linked actions to execute as one operation.

Under Batch V1.1, as many as eight transactions can be bundled into a single atomic operation. This means every transaction in the batch must succeed together or the entire operation fails, removing the possibility of only part of a multi-step transfer being completed.

For example, two users exchanging tokens could bundle their respective transfers so that both transactions settle simultaneously. Neither party would be left with completed payment on one side if the other transaction fails.

The amendment had backing from 27 of 35 trusted validators as of Tuesday, representing about 77% support. XRP Ledger amendments require at least 80% approval, a threshold intended to ensure that major network changes have broad validator consensus.

With support currently just below the required level, a single additional validator vote could push the amendment over the threshold and begin the two-week activation period.

Validators must maintain at least 80% support throughout the entire 14-day period for the amendment to activate. They can also change their votes while the countdown is underway.

Batch Upgrade Underwent Security Review

The push to activate Batch V1.1 comes after developers addressed 11 security and reliability issues. Ripple’s developer division, RippleX, published a technical review of the fixes on Monday, ahead of the feature’s potential launch on the XRP Ledger mainnet.

Batch V1.1 was included in the xrpld 3.3.0 release and is currently being considered through the network’s amendment voting process.

The latest review identified 11 problems involving signatures, authorization checks and vulnerabilities that could potentially cause servers to crash. One issue classified as critical by security firm Common Prefix could have enabled an attacker to reuse a user’s signed permission and execute more transactions than the user had authorized.

RippleX said the review included four senior engineers, security audits by Halborn and Common Prefix, a public security competition and automated testing.

Commercial Uses Could Follow

RippleX has also indicated that commercial projects are either under contract or being developed around the Batch functionality, although the companies involved had not been publicly identified as of Tuesday.

The feature could have practical applications for wallets and marketplaces as well. A platform, for instance, could combine a customer’s payment and its associated service fee into one batch, ensuring that both transactions either complete or fail together.

The latest security work follows a more serious flaw discovered earlier this year in the original Batch proposal. Researchers found that, under certain circumstances, an attacker could potentially add transactions from another user’s account without receiving that user’s authorization.

That original version was never deployed to the live network. Developers replaced it through the XRP Ledger 3.3.0 software release on Aug. 6, followed by additional internal reviews, external audits and public security testing.

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