The XRP Ledger is stepping up with a planned upgrade that could change how network fees are paid. Instead of forcing every user to buy and lock up XRP before interacting with the ledger, banks or platforms might take over that cost. This would let regular users operate accounts without owning a single XRP.
What’s Changing in the XRP Ledger Upgrade
Jazzi Cooper, RippleX’s head of product, announced the upcoming xrpld 3.3.0 release, expected next week. Among its five significant updates is 'Sponsored Fees and Reserves,' which allows sponsors like banks or issuers to cover fees and the XRP amounts locked for account creation and transactions. Currently, each account on the ledger locks 1 XRP that can’t be spent or moved, plus 0.2 XRP for every additional item such as trustlines. Plus, all transactions burn a small fee, meaning new users must first purchase XRP to interact with the network.
Cooper highlighted this as a major barrier for new users and institutional adoption since requiring everyone to buy XRP complicates onboarding and tokenization prospects on the platform.
XRP’s price currently hovers near $1.06, down 1.3% for the day and roughly 64% below its level a year ago. The market cap sits around $66.5 billion. This upgrade won’t reduce the total XRP locked but shifts responsibility from many individual users to fewer sponsors with larger holdings. This could lower demand from everyday users while increasing it for platforms managing thousands of accounts.
Previous XRPL updates, like Permissioned Domains, gained over 91% validator support but barely moved XRP’s price, even as ledger usage increased while the token’s value fell. Meanwhile, two other features proposed now are second attempts after earlier issues, including a security flaw in Batch transactions and fee problems in Permission Delegation.
This content is informational and not financial advice.