XRP Ledger Amendments: Why Ripple Voted No on the Batch Upgrade

On September 25, 2026, Ripple voted no on an XRP Ledger upgrade it actually supports. To anyone watching from the outside, that sounds strange. Inside the ledger’s rules, it was a deliberate move to reset a countdown so a fix could go live alongside the upgrade.

The episode is a useful window into a question every XRP holder should be able to answer: who actually gets to change the rules behind your coins? A Bullrunners video walks through the validator list, the 80% rule and the two-week clock, and how to check all of it from your phone.

Who decides what goes into the XRP Ledger?

A group of servers called validators decides, and each server chooses which validators it listens to. A validator is simply a server that votes on what goes into the ledger.

Every server keeps its own list of validators to trust. The XRP Ledger documentation calls this a unique node list (UNL). The video compares it to picking your own jury and only counting their verdicts.

In practice, most servers use the same default list, published by the XRP Ledger Foundation and Ripple. According to XRPScan, as cited in the video, that list has 35 validators and a quorum of 28. The quorum is the number that must agree before anything counts, which works out to the ledger’s 80% rule.

A developer quoted in the video also explained the negative UNL, a mechanism that temporarily sidelines unreliable validators without permanently removing them. The developer described this as letting the network recover automatically, with every action recorded on the ledger and open to audit.

How does this differ from Bitcoin?

On Bitcoin, whoever wins the mining race picks what goes into the next block. On the XRP Ledger, the trusted validators must agree on every ledger version, or it does not happen.

David Schwartz, who built the ledger, said in a 2018 clip featured in the video that there is “no single party that gets to determine each block.” He also posted in June 2026, per the video, that any validator trying to cheat would be dropped from everyone’s list. Because every validator signs what it says, bad behavior leaves evidence.

Why did Ripple vote no on Batch?

Ripple voted no to restart Batch’s activation clock so a fix could be included. Here is the sequence the video describes:

1. September 15, 2026: The Batch amendment passed the 80% line and began its two-week clock, due to activate September 29.
2. September 25, 2026: The XRP Ledger operations account posted a fix for Batch. Activating on the original schedule would have meant going live without it.
3. That evening: Two validators on the list, one of them Ripple, publicly switched their votes to no. That pushed support below the threshold.
4. Result: Under the rules, an amendment needs more than 80% support for two full weeks, or the clock goes back to zero. CoinDesk reported Batch back above the line that day, with a new earliest activation date of October 9, 2026, according to the video.

An amendment is the ledger’s word for an upgrade. Batch lets users bundle up to eight transactions so they all go through or none do.

The video also points to a second amendment, permission delegation, which lets an account hand some tasks to another key. When the host checked, it had 29 of 35 votes, one above the 28-vote line. If it slips below, its clock restarts too.

Does Ripple control the XRP Ledger?

According to the sources cited in the video, no. Ripple runs one of the 35 validators on the default list, per the XRP Ledger FAQ and XRPScan on September 27, 2026.

In an interview clip, a Ripple representative called the idea that Ripple controls the ledger “by far the biggest misconception,” saying every node enforces every rule and Ripple runs “something like 1% of the network.” The video notes that figure compares Ripple’s one validator to the 192 that XRPScan counts in total. On the default list, it is one vote in 35, and one vote cannot reach 80% on its own.

The FAQ also says that if Ripple stopped operating or acted maliciously, servers could switch to another publisher’s list.

What do the critics say?

Critics argue the default list makes the network effectively permissioned. The video presents their case fairly.

• Justin Bons, who runs the crypto fund Cyber Capital, posted in February that the list makes validators effectively permissioned, meaning you need permission to take part. His point is that servers that stray from the list risk splitting off.
• A University of Bern team made a similar case in 2020. Their review found 40 recommended validators at the time, six of them run by Ripple, and noted that the default configuration files point nodes to Ripple’s recommended list.

The video’s response is that the list has changed since then. By September 2026, Ripple ran one of 35. In April 2026, the foundation posted that a new operator had joined and the University of São Paulo had left at its own request, with changes made in public.

The host’s view is that who writes the list is worth watching, a point he concedes to critics.

What happens when validators cannot agree?

The ledger stops rather than guesses. On February 4, 2025, the XRP Ledger stopped confirming transactions for 64 minutes, according to The Block. Servers could not get enough of the list to agree, so they refused to finalize anything. No user funds were lost, per the video.

Schwartz explained the logic in 2019. For an honest participant, correctness comes first, agreement second and forward progress third. A system that keeps moving but is wrong is useless.

In a 2015 clip, he added that a bad list could stop the network with as little as 20% of validators. But doing so would require cryptographically signing the messages involved, and “everybody would just stop listening to your keys.” The worst a bad list can do is halt the ledger, with its own signatures on the evidence.

The trade-off is speed. Schwartz said adding the AMM feature took two years, where other blockchains might move faster. The host’s view is that this slowness is the price of a ledger where nobody can simply press a button.

A simple framework for your own holdings

The video contrasts the ledger’s written rule with how most holders manage their coins: by feel, often while reacting to headlines like “XRP Ledger halted.” It suggests answering three questions in writing:

1. Where do your coins sit? On an exchange, or on keys you control.
2. Are they earning anything? Or are they simply held.
3. What is your own 80% line? The written rules you have set in advance for when you would add or reduce a position.

A quick test from the video: open your exchange app and look at open orders. If it is empty, your plan likely exists only in your head. The video cites May 19, 2021, when Bitcoin fell 25% and Coinbase’s own write-up says users hit errors trying to buy, sell or even log in for two hours. A plan made in advance does not depend on an app working during a busy day.

What to watch next

The key date is October 9, 2026. If Batch stays above the 80% line until then, it activates. If support drops, the clock resets again.

To check for yourself, search “XRPScan amendments.” Batch appears near the top with its vote count and countdown. Permission delegation is worth watching too, since it was sitting just one vote above the threshold when the video was recorded. Changes to the default validator list are also posted publicly and are worth following if the decentralization debate matters to you.