XRP Genesis: The Great Ledger Debate – Who’s Centralized Now?

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Hold on to your digital wallets, folks! The age-old spat over the decentralization of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) just got juicier than a ripe tomato at a food fight. Late Sunday night, in one corner, we have Bram Kanstein, a Bitcoin-loving heavyweight with more opinions than a cat has lives. And in the other corner, we’ve got Ripple CTO David Schwartz, ready to rumble!

Kanstein jumped into the ring waving a flag saying, “Hey, the ledger didn’t start at ‘Ledger 1,’ but way back at ‘Ledger 32,570!’” He’s convinced this is the smoking gun that proves XRP is as centralized as a government office on a Monday morning.

But hold your horses! Schwartz fires back faster than a caffeinated squirrel, claiming that the handling of the XRP genesis “glitch” was actually a shining example of decentralized inaction. You heard me right-inaction is the new action! He even compared it to two infamous incidents in Bitcoin history that he says show way more centralization than a traffic jam on Black Friday.

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“Bitcoin had at least two incidents that showed way more centralization than this one,” Schwartz declared, adjusting his nerd glasses. “We decided not to change a thing and just let it ride like a bad rollercoaster!”

What is XRP Ledger 32,570?

So, what’s the deal with Ledger 32,570? When the XRP Ledger launched back in June 2012, a bug popped up in the early server software like an unwelcome party crasher. The headers for the first week got saved incorrectly, causing Ledgers 1 through 32,569 to become as useful as a chocolate teapot-permanently lost!

But don’t worry! They preserved the state of the ledger and carried on, leaving the first week’s history up for grabs like a mystery box on a game show.

And ta-da! Ledger 32,570 became the official “Genesis” point for all public history servers. Cue the confetti!

Bitcoin’s Incidents

In his witty comeback, Schwartz pointed out that Bitcoin had its fair share of “oopsie” moments that showed much more centralization. He referred to those times when Bitcoin stakeholders swooped in like superheroes to fix critical bugs.

He specifically called out the value overflow bug, which sounds like a bad day at the bank. “But I think you could make a good argument that it does,” he quipped. “The biggest blunder was the coordinated 2010 rollback!”

This legendary bug is often thrown around by critics as proof that Bitcoin’s supposed immutability is just a fancy way of saying, “We need humans to step in sometimes.” Who knew crypto drama could be this entertaining?

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2026-02-10 10:09